


Cards on the Table

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Crime Family, Crime!Zayn, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Ocean's Eleven AU, Pining, but there is a lot of angst, lots of codependence, mysterious Zayn is mysterious, no really guys I don't care about plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:51:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slowly, very slowly, Zayn nods. “After the job,” he agrees, and turns to leave. But then he pauses, with his hand on the doorknob, and Liam braces himself because he knows the signs of a Zayn Malik bit of wisdom coming. “But Liam—” he talks to the side, not looking back, “You keep on wanting me to show my hand. But you--you’ve barely got any money in the pot.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In which Liam pines, Zayn broods, Louis is manic, Harry charms everyone, Niall makes the best sandwiches, and stealing the money is barely the point at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cards on the Table

**Author's Note:**

> I've given a lot of thought to RPFs, and the way I justify them is that obviously I don't know anything about these people, the characters in this story are creations based loosely on the public personas of One Direction mixed up in my overly slashy-brain, with some of the homoeroticism of Ocean's Eleven thrown in. I know and own nothing, people. Nothing. 
> 
> On a happier note, this goes out to Sunniskies and Marsha, because they sucked me into this fandom and bombarded me with gifs so I couldn't escape. Stockholm Syndrome. It works.
> 
> And it may have a different title here, but in my head, this fic will always be titled: An Ode to the Mysteriousness of Zayn Malik. Because no one is as equally as mysterious as Zayn Malik. Hope you enjoy!

Liam smells him first. 

There’s no reason to know it’s him. The club is thick with smoke; other people could smell like too-expensive Gucci cologne, or cherry gum that doesn’t mask the cigarettes at all. But it isn’t other people. He knows that, can feel it in his bones as someone brushes behind him at the bar, as he eases his way through the dancers and the pounding music to the back room where there’s only the low thrumming of the bass. It’s him. It has to be. 

It’s still a jolt to see him there, sitting at the table easy as you please, amid all the empty-headed celebutantes and actors and pretty people with money to burn. He’s the prettiest of them all, of course, with a bar heiress with ambitions towards acting hanging off of one arm and an up-and-coming rock star on the other, and Liam isn’t at all surprised he has them in the palm of his hand already. Liam’s own breath catches in his throat as the image hits him, and he almost stumbles, and for a second he actually wonders if he’s going to faint, if this is going to be the moment when he finally loses the practicality he’s known for—not in a middle of a job, not that time he got shot, not that time _Niall_ got shot and so much blood was gushing out of his calf that they risked taking him to a hospital—just this, a cool, hard smile at a poker table, and eyes glinting gold in the dimness of the room. 

“This is Zayn, Liam,” the heiress whines. Her scarlet nails run up Zayn’s arm, trace the tattoo at his wrist. Liam promptly forgets that ten minutes ago he thought her stupid but nice. “He can play, right?”

“He has the buy in,” the rock star adds, with a nervous, impressed glance out of bloodshot eyes. 

Liam swallows down the sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to knock away the woman’s hands, to growl his anger at her, to hit her for learning the shape of the new tattoos he can see through the fine silk shirt. But he’s no amateur, and he’s not Louis, to let his emotions lead him blindly into disaster. And he knows that knife-edged grin on Zayn’s face, knows the tells he doesn’t have, can read the tension in the air around him like a rubber band stretched to breaking. “Of course,” he says, “It’ll be good for you to have someone new to play with.”

“New experiences are always good,” Zayn agrees, with that edge of mystery he puts so effortlessly into everything he says. He doesn’t seem to react to the heiress’s wandering hand, but that’s Zayn’s charm, always has been, the enigma of him that none of the rest of them can quite match despite their equal qualifications. 

The chair slides silently backwards as Liam sits. He uses the familiar ritual of dealing to get his breath back, a simple five card draw, as he’s done a thousand times one two three four five, one two three four five. Until all the breath disappears again the first time Zayn’s eyes meet his, gleaming with mischief and affection in a way only his boys know how to read. 

He’s forgotten just how pretty Zayn is. Or no, he hadn’t; Zayn’s beauty had become almost mythical in Liam’s mind, a legendary thing like Superman’s strength and Spiderman’s agility. What he had forgotten was the way it pounded into him like a battering ram, every time. Every time the light changed, dancing a different set of shadows over his stark cheekbones and smooth skin, every time Zayn moved, with his oddly deliberate elegance, every time another swirl of ink showed unexpectedly against his skin. He’d forgotten how much it burns. 

“So what comes first?” he asks the starlets, and it’s the rock star who answers, his brow furrowed in thought, 

“We ante up?”

\----

They fleece the celebrities out of a few thousand dollars, because they can, because Zayn is _there_ , sitting across the table from him and they don’t need words to communicate a plan, and Liam walks away from the table with a smile and a prayer of thanksgiving that he’s done with that. 

Zayn is waiting outside, his leather jacket on, a cigarette dangling from his fingertips. He looks like everything Liam’s mother ever warned him against, darkly handsome and dangerous. But Liam’s mom still thinks he’s an accountant (“You do work with numbers,” Niall had chortled, and Liam had punched him and Louis had grinned and asked “Do your folks even know you’re not in jail?” and Niall has shrugged, unconcerned, even as Harry nudged Louis chidingly, always more sensitive because he had never dealt with it, and Zayn met Liam’s eyes across them all and they were soft and fond and terribly, terribly sad, and Liam knew that he was wishing there was a comforting lie for his family), so he figures it doesn’t matter. And he couldn’t stop himself if it did. 

Zayn looks up as Liam approaches, and stubs the cigarette out on the concrete wall behind him. “Hey,” he says, like it’s been an hour, a day, not two full damn years. 

“Hey?” Liam chokes out, half laughing, half furious beyond belief, because he’s still reeling from the shock of his appearance, “You fucking idiot!” 

And Zayn just grins, his sloppy, loose, little-boy grin only the lads get, and steps into the circle of Liam’s outstretched arms. “Knew I could get you to swear,” he mutters into Liam’s neck, his lips brushing like fire against the skin there, but he’s clinging to Liam just as hard as Liam’s squeezing him, like he’s the only thing anchoring him to the ground, like if he holds him close enough he can erase the long years of separation, just sink into the _them_ that’s always been enough and everything. He buries his head in Zayn’s hair, breaths in the scent of it, the same product as before, the same as he used to leave in the bathroom wherever they traveled but would always forget until Liam started packing it himself. He can feel Zayn doing the same, inhaling against his chest. 

It takes a while, but he’s finally certain Zayn’s here, and solid, and _him_ , a full six months before he should be—not that Liam has a calendar of days marked off, except in his head, and possibly on Harry’s wall—and he lets go. And then he realizes the one jarring element. “Louis?” he asks, and can’t keep the worry from his voice. Maybe only Zayn got out early? Maybe Louis’s still in there, all alone, or maybe they got separated and they’ve both been alone this whole time, and his grip tightens on Zayn’s shoulder at the thought, like he could retroactively drive the loneliness away. 

“He’s getting Harry,” Zayn answers, easily enough. He tilts his head so his cheek brushes against the back of Liam’s hand. “Niall’s foraging, but he’s meeting us at the hotel.”

“You got Niall first? I thought I was your favorite.” Liam’s laughs like it was a joke. It was. Sort of. 

“He was easiest to find.” Zayn’s eyes narrow, lose a little of the softness. “Why weren’t you together?”

Liam shrugs. “We have been,” he replies, and leaves it at that. 

Louis would have pushed. Harry would have shown his worry so obviously you felt guilty not telling him. Niall would have let it go, assuming you’d tell him if it was important. Liam would have pushed and harried and probably tried some guilt too. But Zayn just nods, slowly, and doesn’t mention it, but Liam knows that just means he’s going to dwell on it until he comes up with a solution that makes sense. But that’s for later. 

Now he just grins again, and puts his hand over Liam’s. For a second, he looks like the boy he must have been before Liam knew him, innocent and gleeful and ready to take on the world and win. “Let’s go,” he says. “It’s been too long.”

\----

“Liam!”

“Zayn!”

They both get tackled the second Liam gets the suite door closed behind them. Liam’s arms are suddenly full of Louis, all lean muscle and fluffy hair and improbably sharp joints. Beside him, Harry’s actually lifted Zayn off the ground, and there’s something Liam suspects are tears in his eyes. Then there’s a thump behind them and Niall’s arms surround Liam and Zayn, brings them together until its just a mass of limbs and bodies and laughter, and if there are tears too no one mentions it when they break apart, still laughing. 

“Well, that’s done,” Louis announces. He takes a step back, wipes his hands together in satisfaction, and turns his back to go to the center of the room to collapse onto the couch. Zayn follows like he can’t help it, like it’s the only place he could be, shoving Louis’s legs out of the way so he can sit down next to him, curl into him like it’s second nature—which it probably is, Liam realizes; they might not have been the closest when they left but they’ve been all the other has for two years, of course they’re closer now. 

“Got food?” Louis calls, same as he had three years ago, and Niall scoffs loudly. 

“Did I get food?” he mutters, audible to everyone. “Honestly. Man goes to jail then comes back and thinks I didn’t get food.” He picks up the bags he dropped to join the group hug, and heads towards the kitchenette. 

Harry’s already on the floor in front of Louis, so he can cards his fingers through his curls like they never even moved. Two years ago, Liam thinks, Zayn would have stayed pressed against him. But he refuses to be jealous. Instead, he goes to help Niall with the food. 

Niall was not kidding when he said he got food. Liam is not surprised by this. There’s a feast of Chinese food half-laid out on the table, three orders of Orange Chicken and Two of Peking Duck prominent among them. Liam hasn’t eaten either of those since they left. 

Niall just grins when he sees Liam looking. “’s their favorites, isn’t it?” he admits, shameless, “Can’t have had it in jail.”

“Probably not,” Liam agrees. He turns to look at the couch, sees Zayn’s dark head and Louis’s lighter one tilted together. It only really hits him then, with the low murmur of their conversation barely audible over the TV—“they’re actually back.”

“Thank God,” Niall’s voice is low, and fervent. Then, after a second, lighter, more curious than pressing, “You going to talk to him about it?”

Liam puts on his best innocent face. And he has it on good authority, from a number of policemen who have yet to suspect him of anything, that it’s a good one. “About what?”

Niall is very clearly not fooled, but because he’s Niall, he shrugs. “Whatever you say. Lads!” he calls, raising his voice. “Grub’s up!” 

They come in a horde, like they’re still fifteen, and the food goes in a rush of stories told and laughter and reminiscing and Zayn’s knee pressed against his thigh. The warmth of it settles over Liam like water—the drawl of Harry’s story of the job he pulled with his stepfather three months ago, Louis’s high, clear laugh, the way Niall eats too much then groans with it as they laugh and Louis prods at his stomach with a foot, Zayn’s cool, tolerant gaze over it all, then the bite of his voice as he joins in with a “remember when”…

It’s almost like it could have been two years ago, meeting up after one of the rare jobs they took apart. But only almost. Zayn and Louis are different, too thin and too bulky all at once, any fat either of them had—and neither had ever had much to spare—changed to wiry muscle. They both have more tattoos, tattoos Liam doesn’t know the significance of, doesn’t even know if there is a meaning or if it’s just like most of Harry’s, done just because he likes the look of it. Zayn wouldn’t do something like that, Liam thinks, because Zayn was an artist before Simon found him, spray-painting his anger on walls, and then after Simon’s training onto carefully forged canvases. 

But it’s even more than that, than the physical, and it gets easier to see as they all settle in after the food, Harry still on the floor, now leaning against Liam’s legs, with Niall draped over Liam’s lap like moving might kill him, and Zayn and Louis both sitting on the loveseat, Louis’s foot tapping against the rug. They’ve both always been the higher-strung ones, but there’s a tightness to them now, something Liam thinks might even be visible to an outsider. And he knows he’s not imagining it, because Harry keeps giving Louis the same sort of worried glances Liam knows he’s shooting Zayn. They’re… strung-out, not like they’re tired but like they’re barely holding together. 

It’s not necessarily something they’ve never had—that’s the reason they’re in this mess, because Zayn and Louis together are all reckless chaos and playing the game for its own sake, seeing how far they can push before something breaks, even if it’s them. But watching Zayn’s fingers drum over the arm of the loveseat, the way he holds himself rigid, Liam curses himself—not for the first time—for letting the two of them do that job together. They should have taken one of the others, because for all Zayn’s usually a grounding force, that’s not true on a job, where it’s the rest of them who keep Zayn and Louis thinking of logistics and realities and the world outside the job. But they had gone off alone, and then Liam was getting Zayn’s phone call and going to the police station, but they all knew there was no way out this time, no matter how many lawyers Simon called. 

And now it’s two years later, and Zayn is still beautiful, but it’s colder, tenser than it once was, and Louis is leaning forward with a smirk that has never spelled anything but trouble. 

“So, lads. How do you feel about a con?”

“Right now?” Niall asks. He slumps back in his chair, folds his hands over his stomach. “Because I’m knackered.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Not right now. Idiot.”

“What’s the job?” Harry asks, voice low and slow and so very normal. 

Louis’s reply comes quick and high and a little manic, and they’ve always sort of been like that, reflections on the same theme. “The job, my dear Harold, is revenge.”

\----

Liam and Zayn go to see Simon. 

“Liam has to go,” Niall had said. “Simon loves our Payner.”

“Simon loves all of us,” Louis had shot back, but Harry shook his head. 

“Liam sounds reasonable, though.”

“Just me?” Liam had asked, a little worried. It’s not that he can’t do his job, because he damn well can. But he’s not a talker, like Louis, nor does he have the charisma Harry just oozes, or Niall’s easy charm, or Zayn’s way of choosing the right word to say at the right moment. He’s no one’s fool, but he knows his strengths, and it’s not in words. 

“I’ll go too,” Zayn said, half assurance, half statement, and Harry had nodded and Louis had agreed and Niall was pleased, and Liam had told himself one thousand times on the ride over that Zayn was going for the job, or to see Simon, not for him. 

He had told himself that on the ride from the Vegas airport as Zayn turned on the car radio and belted out all the top 40 hits—what, thought there wasn’t radio in prison?—and when Zayn had fallen asleep, his head resting comfortably on Liam’s shoulder. He stole glances at him as he slept and Liam drove through the long, open desert between city and Simon’s house. Zayn always got looser when he slept, his lips turning up almost into a smile, and Liam wanted nothing more than to be able to lean down and taste that smile, because he never sees its like when Zayn’s awake. 

But he can’t, and he doesn’t, and Zayn starts awake when they arrive, blinking sleep out of his eyes like a perturbed child. Liam hides his grin, because its adorable in a way no one ever believes Zayn Malik could be adorable. 

They’re shown poolside by one of Simon’s servants, a young, attractive man—because Simon might not like men but he likes the things he owns to be attractive—who very visibly runs his eyes over Zayn as he ushers them through the sleek white lines of the house. Zayn doesn’t seem to notice—because he’s probably too used to it, the attention he gets, the eyes he draws—but Liam makes a noise he is a little worried is too close to a growl and steps closer to Zayn, into his space. Zayn tilts his head, flashes him a quick, thoughtless grin, a we-can-do-this smirk. Liam relaxes, a little. Not just because of the smile, but also because the servant backs off at Liam’s too-blatant territorialness. 

Simon’s lunch is excellent, as always. He chats with Liam about recent jobs, fills them both in on gossip. He even, with his trademark bluntness, asks Zayn about prison, but when Liam jumps to his defense Zayn just smirks and shoots a retort back, because he and Simon have always interacted with sarcasm and silence and thinly-veiled defiance. 

It’s not until they’re nearly done that Simon fixes them with a stern gaze. “So, what’s the job?” he asks.

“The job?”

Apparently, no one is believing Liam’s innocent face anymore. “You come and see me not a week after Tomlinson and this one get out of prison? You need a backer.” Simon braces his elbows on the table so the collar of his shirt gapes open to reveal the salt and pepper hair of his chest. “So what’s the job?”

“Couldn’t we just want to see you?” Liam asks, and he doesn’t have to look over to know Zayn’s got his poker face on, is waiting for the right time to jump in for the kill. 

“You boys should always want to see me, but instead I get Christmas cards. What’s the job, Liam? I’m not senile yet.” 

“You’ll never be senile,” Liam retorts, and Simon’s shark-like grin shows that the flattery worked. Liam believes it, though. He can’t ever imagine him less coherent than he was on the day he brought five boys together and told them they were a team now, so watch each other’s backs. 

“I see why you brought him,” Simon tells Zayn. “But if you’re just going to delay, I do have things to—”

“Tom Parker,” Zayn says, his voice brusque. They know their roles in the con, even if Simon taught it to them. And Liam’s pretty sure Zayn’s enjoying this, enjoying seeing if he can pull one over on Simon, to judge by the set of his shoulders and the interest in his eyes. 

Simon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Parker? Which hotel?”

Zayn smiles at that, his knife-edge smile that makes Liam think of one of those poisonous frogs—so beautiful they lure you in for a touch and then you’re dead. “All three.”

If possible, Simon’s eyebrows rise even higher. “That’s not possible.”

“That’s never been done before,” Liam corrects him, “But it’s not impossible.”

“I’ve been in this business a long time, boys. It’s impossible. People have tried to rob Vegas casinos, but it’s—”

“We haven’t tried,” Liam points out. Zayn nods, dripping arrogance.

Simon snorts. “You boys are good, but you aren’t that good. Weren’t you caught not too long ago?”

Zayn shoves back from the table in a blur of golden skin and outrage. “Fine. Let’s go then, Liam.”

Liam stands, too, and puts what seems like a restraining hand on Zayn’s shoulder. It’s tense, vibrating—but not, Liam thinks, with rage, for all his face is shuttered. 

“We’ll do it some other way,” he tells Zayn, just loud enough for Simon to overhear. He pulls Zayn into a one-armed hug. It might be overkill, but why do a job if there’s no pleasure in it? He looks over his shoulder at Simon. His brows are drawn together, concerned. “Thanks for lunch, Simon. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you.”

They get three steps forward before Simon stops them, which is one step more than Liam was betting. “Why do you want him so bad?” he asks, and Zayn stops vibrating, and Liam holds in a smile. 

They turn, and Zayn’s not pretending when his voice goes icy-cold, with the slow-burning anger they all share, like one emotion they all tap into. Liam’s never seen him this angry with anyone except drunk drivers, or maybe the world. “He put us in prison,” Zayn says, and Simon’s face goes hard, and Liam knows they have him. 

\----

Louis’s grin is sharp and fierce when they tell him the news. “We’ll need a crew,” he says, and Zayn snorts because duh. 

They all gather around the table, stare at the building plans spread out on the table, the scribbles around them vague outlines of the beginning of plans. 

“Dani’s between jobs,” Liam suggests. Harry nods, and Niall also mutters his agreement. 

“Perrie and Eleanor as drivers,” Zayn suggests immediately, and Liam twitches. 

“Definitely,” Louis agrees. “How is El, anyway?”

“Going to kill you,” Niall counters, and Louis smirks like that’s good news. Between them, it probably is. 

“Figure Josh, too?” Harry suggests, as a gesture to get them back on track. 

“He’ll want to see you two anyway,” Niall adds. “And he would kill us if we didn’t cut him in.” 

“We are sure he’s not here right now, right?” Harry makes a big deal of looking around. It gets the laughs he wants, but Liam follows his gaze. Josh has a way of just being there unexpectedly. 

Louis stares down at the plans some more, his lips pressed together into something that’s sterner than a pout. “We need comms,” he says reluctantly. Harry’s face lights up. “No.”

“Who else?”

“No!”

“Really, who else?”

“Not him, c’mon, Haz, anyone else.”

“Why don’t you like him?” Harry’s more resigned than confused; long years of his best friends constantly at odds have jaded him, as much as it is possible to jade Harry Styles. 

“He doesn’t like me,” Louis snaps. 

“He likes you fine,” Harry shoots back, “If you didn’t antagonize him—”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault?” Louis throws up his hands, knocking the plans off the table. He ignores them, and advances on Harry, hands on his hips. Harry stands firm, looks down at him with calm, sad eyes. 

“Not your fault, Tommo, but you do—”

Zayn grabs Niall and Liam by the elbows, and yanks them backwards, into the nearest room, which happens to be his. 

“Hate it when mum and dad fight,” he says wryly, letting go of them, then continues on to the window and shoves it open, pulling a pack of cigarette from his pockets. 

“Thought you two were mum and dad.” Niall throws himself stomach first onto the bed, and bounces twice, gleefully. “’s you guys who have the freaky mind reading shit going on.”

Liam feels himself blush, but Zayn just raises an eyebrow over his cigarette. He holds out the box to the others, but Liam shakes his head—he never really understood the appeal of smoking, except for when Zayn’s cheeks hollow around the cigarette and Liam has to turn away and think of dead kittens until his body’s calm again—and Niall makes a face. 

“Weren’t those worth tons of money in the joint?” he asks, “Shouldn’t you have cut back on the whole addiction thing so you could hoard them and have something to trade other than how pretty you are?”

Liam’s fists clench as he shoves them into his pockets. He knows what happens in jail. Or at least, he knows enough. He sometimes wished, late at night when he gave up pretending that he wasn’t wondering how Zayn was, where he was, what he was doing, if he was surviving, that Harry had gone with Louis that day, or he with Zayn. And he knows it’s selfish and cruel, and he hates himself for it, for prioritizing his boys, but—Louis and Zayn never know when to quit, never know when to back down or shut up or let it go, and that’s dangerous in prison, and they would need protection from all the people they would inevitably talk back too because Liam wasn’t there to warn people away with his bulk and fists. Not that Zayn and Louis couldn’t both be dangerous when they needed to be, because they could be, maybe even more than Liam because of their utter recklessness, but they preferred to fight with words and looks and charm. 

And so Liam would toss and turn and wonder how they got protection, if they had all decided long ago that if anything went wrong no contact was good contact, and there was no way of getting currency to them. Because he knows what Zayn looks like, knows how impossible it is to resist him, and he knows that Zayn has survived so long by doing what he’s had to, and he can’t stand the thought of anyone else knowing. 

But then sometimes, when the night was very, very long, and Harry and Niall were away on one of their increasingly lengthy solo jobs, he would imagine. Imagine if things had gone differently, and Liam was already in prison when Zayn was thrown in, all glinting eyes and knife smile and perfect features. And he would mouth off to some skinhead, would say the wrong thing with all the arrogance he could muster because that was how Zayn dealt with uncertainty and fear, and Liam would step in to defend the boy too beautiful to get his face smashed in. 

And Zayn would glare at him, and scoff, and say he didn’t need help, but later after he brooded on it and made his plans and decided how he wanted to play this new game, he would come up to Liam in the yard, or no, the showers, more private, and his look would have changed, all hot eyes and looks through his lashes and a hand on his arm, and suggestions of a trade. Liam wouldn’t know, then, like he does now, all the pockets of Zayn, the bits and pieces of him that add up to him, but he wouldn’t be able to say no because Liam never can, to Zayn. So Zayn would sink to his knees, then and there, and his long, clever fingers would pull down Liam’s pants, and his cheeks would hollow like they did around a cigarette as he sucked, his hand stroking up and down the base of Liam’s dick even as his tongue swirled around the head, and Liam would groan Zayn’s name and grab his hair as he fucked into his perfect mouth. Liam had brought himself off to the imaginings in the dark of the night, under the covers, hating himself because that’s not how he wanted Zayn, as a trade, as money, as part of the game, and because he knows, like he’s always known, that picturing it only makes the wanting worse. 

Zayn blows a cloud of smoke out into the hot, dry night, apparently not noticing the anger burning low and hot in Liam. His head tilts back, light outlining the play of muscles in his neck, the way his adam’s apple bobs as he chuckles, low and sensual, so that Liam shifts uncomfortably against the wall. “Maybe I like trading on my pretty face.” 

Niall throws a pillow at him. “I don’t need to hear about you whoring yourself out in prison.”

“Do you need to hear about me doing it elsewhere, then?” Zayn teases, and blocks the next pillow to come at him with the hand not holding the cigarette, and he’s smiling and the mysterious, cool figure of a moment ago dissolves into a smirking boy who Liam loves even more. 

“I don’t need to hear about any of the sex you have anywhere,” Niall amends. Then he pauses, and adds, “Unless it’s with, like J-Lo.”

“Heteronormative.”

“Or George Clooney, I don’t judge. But a certain hotness factor must be reached.”

“And Zayn alone’s not enough?” Liam asks. 

Zayn’s lips twitch, and he stubs out the cigarette on the windowsill so he can advance towards the bed. “Am I not pretty enough for you, Niall?”

Niall scoots back, knowing Zayn too well to be near enough to attack. “No, not at all, my standards are so much higher—stay away, what happened to you being the non-touchy one!”

Zayn lunges, misses when Niall twists away, and reaches out a hand to ruffle Niall’s hair anyway. “I blame Louis,” he answers. 

“I blame Louis for most things,” Liam agrees, not least because it’s true, and mostly because he needs to distract himself from the image of Zayn lounging on the bed, one knee bent up, propped up on his elbows, like an invitation to everything Liam’s ever wanted. 

“Speaking of,” Niall remarks, rolling away from Zayn and off the bed, “The coast might be clear.” 

“No yelling for the past few minutes,” Zayn agrees. He shifts so he’s sitting cross-legged on the bed. Liam can breathe again. “There could have been a murder.”

“Harry would have been louder fighting Louis off,” Liam argues. 

“Not if he got his hands on his throat really quick,” Niall points out. 

“Harry would still have fought back.” Liam pushes open the door anyway. “We would have heard that.”

“Heard what?” Louis asks. He and Harry are looking at the table, where the papers are spread out just like they were before. Their shoulders are touching, like nothing had happened. Liam doesn’t understand them sometimes. 

“You killing Harry,” Niall volunteers, and bounces forward. 

But when Liam goes to follow him, Zayn grabs his shoulder. He turns back to look at him. Zayn’s face is serious, closed. “I didn’t,” he says, quietly. Like this is something Liam needs to know. 

“Didn’t what?”

His eyes are more brown than gold in this light, softer with it. “Didn’t, you know, what Niall said. Thought about it,” he admits, “Could have, obviously. But—” he looks like he’s searching for the right words. But Zayn always knows the right words, and stays silent when he doesn’t. “But we made do,” Zayn says at last. “So—I didn’t.”

“Oh.” Liam should have a response to that, he thinks, something supportive and friendly and kind. But blood is burning in his veins, pounding out a rhythm of ‘mine’ and ‘didn’t and then ‘mine’ again, so all he gets out is, “Good.”

Zayn just looks at him a moment longer, like he’s trying to read the thoughts behind Liam’s face. Good luck with that, Liam thinks. He can’t even figure that out. Can’t figure out why Zayn would tell him. Can’t figure out what it means that he didn’t. Can’t figure out himself, and he hates it. 

Then Zayn shakes his head, as if to clear it, and slides away, back towards the table. “So?” he asks. 

“Grimmy’s in!” Harry announces, over Louis’s groan. 

“Anyone surprised?” Niall asks. No one raises their hand. 

Louis sneers. “Can we get back to work, please?”

“Whatever you say.” But Zayn reaches out, wraps a hand around Louis’s wrist. Louis’s sneer fades, and something in him relaxes at that touch, like it said more than Liam could read. 

\----

Simon volunteers his house as headquarters until they have something more concrete ironed out—or at least, he doesn’t object when Louis volunteers it. So they all gather around the pool to wait for the rest of the crew. Niall hovers as the servants lay out food, Liam watches him hover and occasionally steps in before he eats it all, Louis and Harry are bantering by the door, and Zayn is at the pool’s edge, staring into it as if he’s thinking of diving in. 

Liam is just considering going over and making sure he won’t have to drag Zayn out when Josh appears, just there in a moment in the unobtrusive way he has that has always impressed Liam, who is also unobtrusive but in a much less useful way. 

“Tommo!” he greets Louis with a slap on the back. “Glad to see you didn’t get shanked.”

Louis grins. “I’m too pretty to die.”

“No, that’s Zayn. Or maybe Harry,” Josh counters, and winces good-naturedly when Louis punches him. Niall quickly takes him over, chattering about some job he heard about through the grapevine as he drags him over to the food. Liam wanders over to listen, watching Niall pile half the table onto a plate with one eye as the other watches Louis murmur something into Zayn’s ear. Zayn nods, faintly, and their shoulders just barely touch, like a hug without the show of vulnerability. 

“Worried about them?” Harry asks. He throws an arm around Liam’s shoulder, so they’re like a reflection of the other pair. Maybe they always have been, and that’s why they work so well, the five of them. “’Cause I am.” 

Liam shoves a curl out of his face. “There’s nothing wrong with them.” There’s not allowed to be. 

“But they aren’t quite right, either.” 

“They’ve been in prison for two years.” Even to his own ears, he’s unconvincing. “They just need to readjust.” He needs to believe that. Needs to keep telling himself that until it’s true, that everything will go back to normal, because the alternative—that the boys he knew before are gone, that the strange energy, the heightened restlessness that has Zayn shaking all the time, is there to stay; that the Zayn who would smile lazily up at him from behind his easel, or snuggle into his side to watch superhero movies, is never coming back—is too terrifying to think about. 

“If that’s all it is,” Harry replies. He has the same note of worry in his voice as Liam hears in his own. “Have you talked to Zayn at all?”

“About what?”

“Prison.” Harry shrugs, but his eyes—always his tell, when he doesn’t care to make them not be—are sharper than his slow drawl would suggest. “What happened before.”

“No,” Liam snaps, and pulls out of Harry’s grip. He’s tired of people asking him that. It’s not like there’s anything even to deal with, or talk about. 

“You should. Maybe he’d explain something about this.”

Liam lets out something that he meant to be a snort but ended up more of a wince. “Zayn? Explain something?”

At that, Harry turns towards him, into him, chuckling. “Fair point,” he admits. Then his face lights up as he sees something over Liam’s shoulder, and it’s like he loses twenty years and is a kid on Christmas morning again. “Nick!”

“Harry!”

Liam gets out of the way just in time to miss the ridiculous-sized hug Harry wraps Nick in. It’s almost as enthusiastic as the hug he gave Zayn, and they saw each other last month, if not more recently. 

Nick shakes Liam’s hand happily enough when Harry lets him go, then turns to where Zayn and Louis are standing, still near the pool. Louis is very clearly Not Looking at them, and Zayn is just as clearly humoring him, still barely touching in that so-deliberate way they’re both so good at. 

“Gonna ignore me all job, Tomlinson?” Nick calls. 

“Nick!” Harry hisses, and Liam lets out a breath through his teeth. This is not the best way to start off the job. 

Louis pivots, flashes his teeth. “Was planning on it, yeah. But then I thought, why ignore him when I could laugh at him?”

“Brilliant excuse for talking to me, really,” Nick retorts. If Louis’s on edge, Nick looks like he does in front of a computer, that same utterly relaxed but ferociously competent air. 

“You two done yet?” Zayn drawls. He nudges at Louis with his hip, then strides back up the patio towards the food table. “Nick,” he nods at him as he passes.

“Zayn. You got more ink.”

“Not much else to do.”

Nick tilts his head back and laughs, long and loud and hard. Liam sometimes resents Nick, he’ll admit, for taking up so much of Harry, for being an outside variable, but then he does something like that, makes Zayn’s grin flash like he’s really amused, and Liam can see why Harry likes him so much. He’s so bust watching Zayn laugh he doesn’t even notice the source of the new voice that chimes in,

“Seems like the party’s already started.”

“Bit of a sausage fest.”

“Clearly why they needed us.”

“No, they clearly wanted to keep all the sausage to themselves.”

“Selfish, selfish boys.”

The girls pause at the top of the stairs. Even as Liam knows it’s purposeful, he can still appreciate the view—three beautiful women against Simon’s chic house, like something out of a rap music video. 

Except these women are dressed as sleekly and expensively as any ladies, despite the oil stain on Perrie’s knee. And after the men have a moment to properly appreciate them, Eleanor shrieks and leaps at Louis. She throws a punch, which he expects enough to dodge, then throws herself onto him, nearly knocking him off his feet. 

Liam tries not to look the other way, at Perrie and Zayn—but he’s a masochist at heart, he’s learned that since he was fifteen, so he glances over his shoulder. Perrie’s got her head buried in Zayn’s chest, and he’s stroking her hair, smiling softly down at her, gentle as he so rarely seems with anyone but the five of them. Liam’s never been quite sure what they are, or have been—never quite together, he’s fairly certain, but Zayn calls her every few weeks at the least, and something he’ll disappear for a few days and only say “Perrie” as an explanation. 

He wishes he didn’t hate her for it, wishes he could be a bigger person and know she’s good for Zayn, even-keeled and cheerful and tolerant of his quicksilver moods. But he’s not. He hates that she has any of Zayn, that she’s touched parts of him Liam can’t, body and soul. He wants to go over there and wrap his arms around Zayn in all the places she’s touching and growl at her like a feral dog, wants to—

“Hey stranger.” He looks down, and his face almost gets caught in wild brown curls. 

“Hey,” he grins, and hugs Danielle back. “Glad you could make it.”

He is glad. Glad they found their way back to this, after the disaster they ended up being. Mainly his fault, he knows—it wasn’t fair to her to try, when he can’t, when he’s not really emotionally available. But they’re friends now, though maybe not as close as they were, and holding her helps ground him, cool him down. 

“How come I don’t get a hot girl all over me?” Niall whines. 

Louis dodges another one of Eleanor’s fists, half-hearted this time. “Aw, jealous?” 

“Very,” Niall agrees, “it’s not fair, why wasn’t one provided for all of us?”

“You should be so lucky,” Perrie retorts, but Zayn’s detaching himself from her to latch onto Niall, pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek. 

“Don’t be jealous,” Zayn grins as he licks Niall’s skin like an overenthusiastic dog, and Niall tries fruitlessly to shove him away while laughing. Liam’s a little surprised, actually, that Zayn’s so playful with other people around, but these are family, he guesses, or maybe it’s another change, another outpouring of energy. “I’m here for you.” 

“Don’t want you!” Niall protests, “Haz! Help!” Harry grins and leaps into the fray, grabbing Zayn’s waist in a patently unsuccessful attempt to pry him off. Louis goes to Zayn’s defense—or rather, being Louis, goes on the attack with him, grabbing Niall’s other side and licking that cheek, and Liam can’t let that go no matter how many odd, tolerant looks the others are giving them, and he figures Louis is worth three in a fight like this so he goes for Zayn too, and they’re all laughing and shoving and Liam doesn’t know whose limbs are whose or if he’s breathing his own air or one of theirs. 

Until, suddenly, he does, because somehow they’ve shifted so that Zayn’s pressed against Liam, chest to chest, hip to hip, and he can feel Zayn’s muscles shift against him, and his arms are locked on either side of him, and his face is huge in Liam’s view. Just like last time. 

And just like last time, Zayn laughs, quick and wild like a bobcat’s scream, and his lips brush against Liam’s cheeks for the barest instant, and then he’s gone. But Liam’s cheek still burns, and his lips tingle in sympathy, or memory, or both. 

\----

It’s at least an hour before anyone even starts to think about starting. There’s gossip to be had, stories to be swapped, alcohol to be drunk. 

As Liam has already heard the gossip, never has any good stories compared to the others, and doesn’t trust himself to drink, he drifts over to where Simon’s standing, on the edge of the pool. He’s watching the younger people socialize, something that’s almost a smile on his hard face. But there’s something sad in it, too, so Liam offers him a smile. 

“Regretting the invasion? We can get out of you hair—”

“I’ll survive.” Which, Liam knows, is Simon for no, please stay. “It’s been a while since so many young people wanted to be near me.”

Liam snorts, because he has it on good authority (Nick, who always knows all the gossip) that Simon has sex with women younger than Liam more often than anyone else in that house, except maybe Harry. 

Simon just raises an eyebrow, condescendingly skeptical, and they lapse into silence, watching the others talk. Liam waits. Liam knows how to wait out even Zayn’s lengthiest silences. 

“I was just remembering,” Simon says at last, curt, like it’s not a good memory, even though it is, “Those boys I found ten years ago.”

Liam is too. He can’t not, when they’re back, and he can almost see them, the boys they used to be in Simon’s house (not this one, he’s upgraded since then, but with the same modern, moneyed feel), fifteen (or so) and showing it. Louis, too smart and too wild for the suburban life his parents dreamed for him, setting chemicals to explode just to watch things burn. Niall, cheating at poker in back alley games to win enough money to buy his way somewhere interesting. Harry, who had never known anything but the con, sent by his parents to learn from the best, and somehow never coming off as snide or know-it-all even though he was. And Zayn, of course, so full of rage and grief that never made it past his silent face, all scowling arrogance and ice to anyone who tried to reach out, unless they were stupid enough or persistent enough to wear him down. 

And then there was Liam, picking wallets out of pockets to help his mother make rent, so sick of the uncertainty of never having enough, so sure he was losing at life before the game had even begun, until a man who would become Simon picked his pocket back and made him—made them—great. 

If Liam squints, almost, they’re there—Louis tossing back whiskey like it’s nothing, Harry with one arm wrapped around Louis’s shoulders and grinning animatedly at Nick, his dimple deepening like he hasn’t a care in the world, Niall bouncing on the balls of his feet as he stuffs another pepper into his mouth. Zayn standing on the outside, his face unreadable, almost cold, as he blows out a cloud of smoke. 

But then Liam stops squinting. They’re not those boys anymore. They saved each other, he thinks, when he’s drunk enough to feel sappy. They reined in Louis, grounded Niall, gave Harry something real to care about. They taught Zayn how not to be angry, or how to channel it at least, reminded him how to laugh. And all of them—his boys, with their love and wildness and irresistible charm—showed him that life was so much more than he ever thought it could be. 

“Never thought you boys of all people would be setting up a heist for me,” Simon shakes his head. “I must be old.”

Liam opens his mouth to protest, but then Louis’s eyes meet Zayn’s, and Zayn looks to Liam, and he knows even before Harry and Niall start herding people in that it’s time to start. 

The dining room table is long enough for all of them to sit around it. Simon takes a seat at the ornate chair on one end. Louis goes to the other, near the projector. Zayn and Harry are on either side of him, and Liam slides into the seat next to Zayn as Niall takes the one next to Harry. Zayn’s got his job face on, utterly cool and unreadable, like he’s only here because he has nothing better to do. But his fingers are drumming against his thigh, and when Liam sits down they start to run against Liam’s leg, a quick flow of heat. Liam smiles comfortingly at him, but this is weird. Zayn’s not usually restless, or eager like this. Excited, sure, even wired, but not so driven. He’ll go along with Louis’s plans, but he doesn’t need them. Or he didn’t. 

“The essence of the plan,” Louis starts, “Is that we fuck over Tom Parker as hard as we possibly can.”

“And make a shit ton of money doing it,” Niall adds, to pleased noises all around the table. 

“And how are we doing this?” Eleanor asks, half-accusing. 

Louis grins. “By being ever so clever,” he explains, and pulls up the diagrams on the screen. 

The plan, as far as it goes, isn’t too complicated. Difficult, complex, but not hard to understand, especially in the bare bones form it is now. Later, once they get all their intel, it will be much worse, but right now it doesn’t take long for Louis to outline, even with the others interrupting and adding commentary every few sentences. 

When he’s done, Nick raises his hand. He manages to make it seem mocking. “So,” he asks, “One major problem. He’s going to know it’s you. And, by extension, us.”

“No he won’t,” Harry chirps. Nick’s eyebrows rise, but he can’t help but grin back at Harry. It’s his superpower. “Because we’re cleverer than him.”

“You are the only ones who want revenge,” Perrie points out. She sounds reluctant to do so, but she’s still relentlessly logical. “And we already know he doesn’t have any problems turning people over to the feds. Or worse.”

“Probably worse,” Eleanor inserts. 

“Do we know he’s done anything worse?”

“Haven’t you heard the rumors, they say he—”

“They’re not rumors, it’s the truth, he had a guy locked up in a mental institution once—”

“C’mon, Nick, there’s no way for you to know that.”

“Want to bet? It’s all over the place. Do you want to know how much dirty dealing this guy’s done?”

The mutterings continue, louder and more worried, and Liam looks to Louis because if they back out, there’s no one else, this is it for them—

“No we’re not.”

It’s the first time Zayn’s spoken at the table, and so everyone shuts up and turns to him. “We’re not the only ones who want revenge,” he repeats, and pulls himself up straight. His eyes flick to each person in turn, and Liam can almost hear everyone’s breath catch. Zayn’s just got this intensity to him when he gets like this, like he can see into your soul, like he’s picking you apart from the inside out and if you don’t do the right thing he’ll find all those pieces lacking. Or maybe that’s just him, because sometimes Liam feels like he’s spent his entire life trying to get Zayn to look at him and tell him how all the pieces fit together. 

Finally, after Niall’s foot starts to tap, “Zayn…” Perrie whines, “Just tell us already!” 

“Have any of you ever heard of Carl Blackman?” Zayn asks. Everyone shakes their head. 

“Should we?” Danielle asks. 

“No,” Liam answers. Zayn’s leaned back, so he’s done with his part of this. “He’s a two-bit forger Parker had disappeared six years ago, after he tried to swap out a painting in one of Parker’s collections. Man lost his wife, home, kids, and reputation, did a nickel in prison, only went downhill from there.”

“And while he was doing all that,” Niall picks up, “He was heard swearing, very loudly, that Tom Parker would pay. He was making powerful friends, too, with all the prison connections, starting to make some waves—and then he just dropped off the map, completely.”

“I have learned, through careful investigation—”

“Smiling at the right people,” Nick inserts. Harry dimples, and doesn’t argue. 

“That he got dropped into a river, made the wrong friends and all. But no one else who cares knows that, and the people who don’t care won’t talk to Parker because no one likes him. So it seems more like he’s gone underground, planning something big.”

“And Parker definitely knows that he’s gone off-grid, at least,” Liam adds. 

“So we’re trying to frame him.” Simon hasn’t really said anything yet, probably trying to give them the leadership roles, but he sounds skeptical now. They hadn’t really mentioned this part to him. “Why would Parker even think of him?”

“Because of this.” Louis hits a button on his laptop, and a painting of a snowscape, pops onto the screen, something Impressionist and pretentious to Liam’s mind, but Zayn had been impressed by it, so it probably means something. “An original Pissaro. Parker’s pride and joy.” 

“And that leads to Blackman because…” Josh doesn’t look unconvinced, just like he’s withholding judgment. 

“We’re going to forge it.”

“Yes, we figured that,” Eleanor drawls. “So what?”

“We’re going to forge it _badly_ ,” Niall clarifies. His face is red like he’s holding in laughter, which he probably is, because he really liked this part of the plan. “And Blackman was known for being bad at forgeries—”

“In a really specific way no one but Zayn understands but Parker would recognize,” Harry inserts. 

“So Parker will assume it was Blackman who did the painting and the job, and leave us alone!” Niall finishes triumphantly. 

Nick leans back in his seat. “So we’re going to knock over three casinos, which no one’s ever done before, steal the prize possession of a guy known for being violent and vengeful, which _also_ no one’s done before, and then blame it all on a a dead guy?”

The five of them exchange looks. 

“Yep,” Louis says. 

Nick sighs, turns to Zayn. “No offense, mate, but you’re going to have to forge a painting just badly enough in an extremely specific way.” 

“I know.”

For once, Nick doesn’t look mocking. “Can you?”

“Of—” Zayn cuts Liam’s protest off by wrapping his hand over Liam’s. He leans forward, meets Nick’s eyes squarely.

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” Nick shrugs. “Sounds like fun.”

Harry laughs, a low, echoing rumble across the room, and Zayn squeezes Liam’s hand, and when Liam turns to look at him he’s got half a smile on his face, not quite happy, not quite excited, but pleased. 

\----

The prep work goes, as it always does, too slow for anyone’s taste, but it’s necessary. Josh follows Parker around. Niall deals at the casino and watches everyone else. Louis cackles manically as he blows stuff up. Harry practices his accent and look when he’s not busy running interference between Nick and Louis. Liam tries to make sure their vault is going up on schedule, even if it feels more like he’s herding loud, sneaky, sarcastic cats. And Zayn stays in his room and paints. 

Liam sneaks into Zayn’s room one night, because he can and because he wants to and because it’s so loud downstairs, where Louis’s picking a fight with Nick, and Liam really doesn’t want to deal with that. Or if he end up having too, as he might if Harry can’t manage it, he wants Zayn there too, because Zayn’s somehow been able to talk Louis down lately when even Harry can’t, just like Louis’s been the one yanking Zayn out of his room and whispering jokes to him to make him smile, not Liam. It’s like the whole balance of everything has shifted, sometime when Liam wasn’t looking and wasn’t able to stop it, and now he doesn’t know how to deal with it. 

The lights of Zayn’s room are mainly off, probably for some artist thing Zayn would explain if Liam asked but Liam wouldn’t understand, so there are just two spotlights, one on the photo of the original that Nick pulled from somewhere, because Zayn refuses to go see it himself, and one on Zayn’s easel. Zayn’s cast in shadows, a cigarette dangling from his lips, a brush gripped in the long fingers of one hand, his eyes narrowed on the canvas. 

Liam loves this Zayn—loves all the Zayns, really, the cool job Zayn and the laughing, mischievous one and the silent, broody one—but he thinks, sometimes, this is his favorite Zayn, perched on a stool in front of an easel. His shoulders relax, like they never do anywhere else except sometimes when all five of them are piled together in front of a TV, and even when his nose wrinkles in frustration he’s got this little smile on his face, like he’s actually happy here, although now that Liam looks its smaller than he’s used to. Even if Simon hadn’t found him, he’d be an artist, Liam’s always thought, in Paris or somewhere, beautiful and moody and silent as his paintings and content with it, in a way Liam doesn’t think he usually is, now, how things are. But then Liam wouldn’t know him, and he can’t bear thinking about that.

“I can hear you thinking,” Zayn says out loud, not looking away from the easel. “Stop brooding. That’s my job.” 

“So no one but you is allowed to brood now?” Liam asks, but he comes into the room and restrains the urge to scoop up all the clothes and rags on the floor as he makes his way to the bed. Zayn’s always been messy, but in a weird way that just brings out how impersonal the room is. There are only two things that make it more than a hotel, two pictures, even though it’s been Zayn’s room as long as he’s stayed here: one of the five of them, somewhere around eighteen, taken near Simon’s pool, with Louis clinging to Harry’s back and Niall about to tackle them both and Zayn waiting to spray them all with a hose when they go down and Liam trying to make sure they at least fall in the pool, not on concrete, and maybe pushing them a little to make sure they do go down, and they’re all laughing and carefree and young; and one of Zayn and his parents and all three of his sisters. It’s gone with Zayn everywhere he’s gone since he was fifteen, and probably before that, too, though Liam can’t know. Zayn always looks ridiculously happy in it, even more so than in the other one, his grin bright and shining as he laughs at one of his sisters, hugging Safaa with one arm and his mother with the other. It hurts Liam to look at it, sometimes, but then sometimes he loves to, and both for the same reason—he’s never seen Zayn that happy. He doesn’t think Zayn has been that happy since. He think he’d be willing to spend his life trying to make it happen again. “Selfish, Zayn,” he says, after what’s probably too long a pause, because he is brooding, almost, “Selfish, selfish, selfish.”

“I’m a selfish bastard, we all know that,” Zayn agrees. He puts his brush down, carefully, and spins on his stool so he’s facing him. He draws his knees up to rest his elbow on them, then his chin on his hand. “What’s up?”

“Just want to see how you’re doing.”

Zayn raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t call him out on the lie. He sees right through Liam, always has. He’s not the first to do that—Liam’s actually kind of an awful liar, to people he loves—but he’s the first who’s never tried to change what he sees. Liam’s spent so long trying to be whatever people expected him to be, did it so often he made it his job. Zayn never asked Liam to be anything but Liam. 

Which is why Liam says, into the silence, “I just worry Louis’s going to push Harry away.”

“Worrywart,” Zayn teases, his lips twitching, “He won’t.”

Liam’s not joking, though. “How can you be sure? He’s Louis, not even he knows what he’s going to do next most of the time.” Liam runs a hand back through his hair and groans. 

“We’re the most important things in Louis’s life,” Zayn replies, calmly. Like he’s not worried about it at all. Which is odd, because he worries too, as much as Liam, just not as loudly. “He won’t mess that up. He can’t.” 

“Could’ve fooled me,” Liam mutters, and Zayn snorts. “But seriously,” Liam goes on, because this is who he is, this is what he does, worry and take care of his boys, makes them as safe as they can be when they do the stupid, reckless stuff they—and by they he mainly means Louis and Zayn—inevitably do. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He didn’t used to hate Nick. Well, not this much.” 

Zayn takes a long drag from his cigarette as he thinks about what to say, his gaze far away. Liam closes his eyes against the picture of it. “He’s scared,” Zayn says at last.

“Scared?” It’s almost too easy to do this, to fall back into old patterns, to remember the days when Liam was sure Zayn knew everything there was to know worth knowing, because he spent more time alone with a book than anyone else Liam had ever known, and he hadn’t yet known that wasn’t always by choice. “Of what?”

“Of losing Harry.”

“But—”

Zayn doesn’t need to interrupt Liam, just gets a look on his face that Liam knows means he’s going to, and Liam stops. “We didn’t expect you all to stand still.” He pauses, takes another drag. “Obviously. That wouldn’t have been fair. But, still—Lou came out and Nick’s not just Harry’s friend Nick, Nick’s the guy who makes Harry laugh like Lou used to. It’s not easy, being replaced.”

“Nick isn’t replacing Louis!” Liam protests, and doesn’t think about how Louis makes Zayn laugh. He thinks instead about those nights, the first few months especially, when he and Niall and Harry would curl up together, just to feel each other breathe, to remind each other that they were still there, at least, when he would cuddle Harry as Harry cried into his shirt because he missed them, so much, and with all his connections he couldn’t help them, when Niall would open Harry’s door to him with dark circles under his eyes and even his sunlight smile dimmed. “Nick—Nick helped Harry survive!”

Zayn just looks at him, his eyes glinting gold and starting to crackle. “And now what? Louis’s thrown, is all.” 

Liam signs. “Look, you don’t know what it was like—”

“Not in prison?” Zayn inserts, harsh and raw. 

“Yes!” Liam throws up his hands. “Obviously it wasn’t as bad as it was for you, but it was bad enough. You weren’t here. We were alone.”

“Not exactly our fault!” It’s louder than Zayn usually is, sharper, almost frightened, but Liam talks over him, nearly yelling. He’s not sure he’s been this angry in years. 

“You weren’t here and none of us knew how to breathe, let alone hold together. So no, Harry didn’t just wait for Louis, because it would have killed him!”

Zayn hasn’t drawn back from Liam’s anger, rare as it is. Instead, he leans in, slipping off his stool so he’s on a level with Liam. “Did you wait?” he asks, in that way he has of making it seem like the answer is the most important thing in the world. 

“I—” Liam feels the anger leach out of him. He looks at Zayn, at how the light highlights the sharp line of his cheekbone, the firmness of his jaw, at the curl of ink around arms that Liam knows as well as his own, at that black line snaking out from under his t-shirt that always makes Liam want to lick and bite and follow it down his chest. 

There’s only one thing to say. One thing, because Liam can’t lie to Zayn, because Zayn’s had all of him since basically the beginning, when he had been reeling from the newness and challenge and size of the world and the beautiful broken boy who had barely spoken except to snarl had pulled him to a pay phone outside of Simon’s house, shoved two quarters into his hand, and didn’t look at him as he walked away to let Liam call home and finally find his solid ground.

Liam thinks of that day, and thinks that for fifty cents Zayn had bought him. 

“I waited,” he says at last. “You know that. I’ll always wait.”

For a second, Zayn’s eyes flicker into something like uncertainty. Then he gets a look, one that Liam’s only seen once before, outside a holding cell two years ago, like his eyes have started to melt and burn, and starts a slow slide forward, and Liam’s mouth is going dry, his tongue darting out to lick his lips because he hopes—he’s dreamed—

Then the door bursts open in a cloud of light and noise, and Louis flings himself onto the bed, narrowly missing Liam, as Zayn jerks back. 

“Fuck them both,” Louis growls, “Fuck them all. Can we do this one, just us?” He looks beseechingly at Zayn, “I can blow it—or no,” he says, quickly, too quickly, “don’t you worry, I’ll wait til he’s far away from her and then I’ll blow him up. Zap, everything’s right!” 

Zayn rolls his eyes at Liam, but he lies down next to Louis like Liam isn’t even there, so Louis can snuggle closer and rest his head on his shoulder. It’s not that Zayn wouldn’t let Liam do that, Liam knows, because he would and he has and the number of times they’ve fallen asleep on each other is a running joke—it’s the way Zayn had drawn back when Louis had walked in, how the look in his eyes had gone from warmth to blankness he uses for strangers, that has Liam getting up and leaving. 

He glances back, just before he shuts the door. Zayn’s carding has fingers through Louis’s hair, nodding as Louis talks, his lips curving into a smile that could become a laugh, one of those throaty, excited laughs Louis can pull out of anyone. 

Liam leaves before it does. 

\----

Niall’s sandwich is actually surprisingly small—Liam thinks he might be able to fit it in his mouth this time, despite its four layers. He still watches with a vague anthropological, or maybe just scientific, interest as Niall goes through his dinner ritual, complete with bitching about his day. He hates it when he gets the day shift. 

“And then the pit boss comes over, you know, the one Harry’s been working on, except we’re going to need to set the girls on him, I think that’ll work better, so anyway, he obviously doesn’t know me, but he tells me to cool it off, no one likes a too enthusiastic dealer.”

“And what did you do?”

“Cooled it off.” Niall opens his mouth impossibly wide, takes a bite of the sandwich, chews, and swallows. Liam waits patiently. “Cooled him off a grand.”

Liam chuckles, and Niall grins. It’s not really bothering him, Liam knows, because things don’t bother Niall, and he’s infinitely astonished by that. 

“So, how was your day?” he asks, still chewing. 

“Fine. And chew with your mouth closed, please.”

“Yes, mum,” Niall retorts. “No more explosions?”

“Literally? Yeah, Louis’s been having a blast.” Niall chokes on a bit as he laughs. “No pun intended, shut up. Figuratively no, thank God.” 

“Maybe because Louis got his blowing shit up quota done with the chemicals.”

Liam shrugs. “I just hope Harry isn’t the next one to blow. He’s got to get mad at Lou eventually, right?”

“Me, I’m betting on Zayn.”

“Zayn doesn’t explode.” Zayn just shut off. 

“So he’s due, right? Not even he can brood forever.”

“Care to bet?”

“Always.” Niall puts down the half-eaten sandwich. “You can’t tell me you of all people haven’t noticed. It’s normal for Tommo. But Zayn’s not been this on edge since the Clark job—the one in that town he used to live in, remember?”

Liam remembers. He remembers how Zayn got through that job with barely a word said to anyone, hardly looking left or right, going through cigarettes like water. How Zayn broke, as soon as they were back, Liam walking into his room to find him shaking on the bed, knees clutched to his chest, and when Liam had gone to him, because even then, barely six months into knowing him, he couldn’t not, Zayn had reached out for the first time and let Liam hold him close through the wracking sobs. He’d never told anyone, not even the other boys, about that night, or the mission that had come out of it, but he’s not surprised Niall saw. Niall always sees more than he lets on. 

“He’ll be fine once the job is done and Parker’s taken care of,” Liam says, and it still sounds like a lie to his ear, because he knows angry Zayn and this isn’t it. “Revenge is enough to put anyone on edge.”

“So’s sexual frustration,” Niall remarks, and Liam chokes on air. Niall chortles happily. “So if you just—”

“Not ‘just’ doing anything,” Liam counters, warningly. 

“He made the first move.”

“Is that what it was?” Liam has spent two years trying to figure that out. He’s been trying to decipher the burning look in Zayn’s eyes, the way he had smiled like he did before he and Louis did something stupid and brilliant and rash, before he had yanked away from the officers holding him to stalk back to Liam, and push his lips against his. And Liam had frozen for a second, because he had dreamed too often of this moment to believe it was really happening in this dirty police station with the handcuffs on Zayn’s wrists digging into Liam’s hip, and by the time his brain had started to work again, by the time he had started to kiss back, to open his mouth to the tongue Zayn flicked across his lips, Zayn had pulled back and held up his hands to the officers, his face unreadable as he was led away. 

Liam had dwelt on every second of that scene, every movement of Zayn’s face, a thousand times since then, and he still doesn’t get it. He still doesn’t _understand_. 

“Sure looked like it to me,” Niall says, softly. “And Li—he’s back, now. Has anything really changed for you?”

“Of course not.” Liam’s not even sure he’s capable of existing without being in love with Zayn anymore. It’s just one of those facts about him, like he has brown eyes and a sister in London. 

“Then—” Niall breaks off as Zayn himelf walks into the kitchen. He’s in dark jeans and a white t-shirt, his hair is loose around his face, and Liam could hate him for how much he wants him. “Emerge from your cave, Malik?”

“Need sustenance,” Zayn explains. He tilts his head, makes a pouty face at Niall that’s clearly copied, poorly, from Louis. 

“One sandwich, coming up!” Niall agrees cheerfully, because he likes feeding people even if Harry’s the only one who can really cook, and pulls out another roll. “Turkey okay?”

“Sure.” Zayn takes the stool next to Liam’s, “But no onions.”

“You mean like every other sandwich I’ve ever made you?” Niall sticks out his tongue, and turns his back to the fridge before seeing Zayn flip him off. 

Zayn grins and leans over so his head is resting on Liam’s shoulder. “Break any laws today, babe?”

“Three before breakfast,” Liam retorts, which he actually thinks might be true, and can’t help but smile down at Zayn. His eyelashes are ridiculously long as they sweep across his skin, and his lips are ridiculously pink, curved into a contented smile. 

“Any good ones?”

“Nothing remarkable.”

“Lame,” Zayn teases, and lets his eyes flutter closed. Zayn never keeps regular hours when he’s painting for a job, but he’s always been a champion napper, and he gets more sleep than anyone else, if in fits and starts. But now, if Liam looks at him hard enough—and he does, he always does—he can see the circles beneath Zayn’s eyes, like he’s exhausted. 

“How many did you break?” Liam counters, but gently, because Zayn looks soft right now and that’s rare enough Liam doesn’t want to lose it. 

“Haven’t been outside,” Zayn murmurs. He buries into Liam’s neck like it’s a pillow. “Could nick Niall’s sandwich.”

“Touch it and die, Malik,” Niall tosses over his shoulder. 

Liam runs a comforting hand over Zayn’s hair. There’s no product in it; he really must not have gone outside. “Turned into a vampire lately?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Niall agrees. He sets a plate in front of Zayn, a true masterpiece of a sandwich on top of it. “Oi, Edward Cullen. Grub’s up.”

Zayn’s eyes open, and he straightens. Liam resists the urge to rub a hand over his shoulder where Zayn was, to pretend he could still smell him on his skin. 

“That hurts, Niall. Twilight?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Liam grins at Zayn, “You’re pretty, brooding, moody, sleep at odd hours…”

“You sparkle in daylight,” Niall finishes. 

Zayn actually swallows before he retorts, “Don’t sparkle.”

“We wouldn’t know, I’m not sure I’ve seen you in sunlight.” Liam dodges Zayn’s elbow. “And you’ve got pointy elbows.”

“Do vampires have pointy elbows?” Niall asks. 

“Dunno. But Zayn does.”

“Observant, aren’t you?” Zayn drawls, and takes another big bite of his sandwich. Liam loves this Zayn too, carefree and happy and playful, but it makes him a little sad, sometimes, because this, he thinks, is the Zayn that would be the only Zayn if his parents had never gotten in that car, and then Liam wouldn’t have all the other Zayns he loves, and it’s probably selfish to hold all those other Zayns close but he does, and he hates himself for it a little. 

“Just eat your dinner,” Liam retorts. 

“Is it dinnertime?”

Liam gives him a look he’d like to think isn’t absolutely adoring, but given the way Niall looks at him, probably is. He ignores the half encouraging, half amused look, and just goes back to discussing the job. 

Zayn finishes his sandwich, shoves the plate in the general direction of the sink, and stands, arching his back so it cracks, his shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of skin above his belt, a hint of ink that Liam’s helpless not to look for. “Work,” he announces, and walks to the door with a nod at Niall and a shoulder pat for Liam that Liam does his best not to lean into. 

It’s not until he’s out the door that Liam registers, in hindsight, the missing weight from his pocket. “Zayn!” he yells, trying not to make it obvious he’s laughing. 

“And that’s one!” Zayn calls back, mischief in his voice, and doesn’t come back in to return the wallet. 

Liam gives the empty doorway a sappy smile. “See,” he says, turning to Niall. “Fine.”

Niall shakes his head, slowly. “Li, he ate in about five minutes. Aren’t you supposed to be the workaholic?”

Shit. Liam glares at the clock on the stove. He’s right. Zayn’s never that anxious to do work. 

\----

“Liam Payne!” Liam looks up just in time to dodge Louis’s tackle—maybe he meant it to be a hug?—and then catch him around the waist so he doesn’t go flying. Louis submits to being caught, lets his momentum swing him around so that he’s face to face with Liam, then presses a smacking kiss to his cheek. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Haven’t.”

Louis pouts. He is, Liam could objectively admit, much better at it than Zayn, and knows it, and likes to use it to full effect. “Feels like it. I haven’t had Liam time in years.”

“There were circumstances.”

“Sure, yeah, but you know what I was thinking? I’d roll over in my cold, lonely bunk and think, my life is shit. I haven’t had Liam time! And also, I’m in prison.”

Liam shakes his head, but he’s laughing, too, because you can’t not when Louis decides to be charming. He’s not got Harry’s sheer charisma—not many people actually like Louis right off—but he’s got an irresistible magnetism all the same. 

“Fine then,” he chuckles, and pulls Louis down onto the couch he’s been sitting at. “You’ve got until five.”

‘Why only til then?”

“Because then I’ve got to go check how the girls are getting along with the van,” Liam explains, “Unless you’d rather deal with that?”

“Until five is fine.” Louis waves a dismissive hand. Liam rolls his eyes at the ceiling. Lou’s good with ideas, with plans, but not so good with the details of implementing them. “So, Liam,” he goes on. He’s turned so he could face him, his eyes—such a shocking blue, sometimes—staring straight into Liam’s face. “How’ve you been, mate?”

And that’s the thing about Louis, really. He’s a bit of a prick and he’s maniacal and a loose cannon and he can be careless with people and he’s gotten so close to Zayn—but he cares, as much as anyone Liam’s ever known. There is nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for one of his lads, and so they forgive him the chaos and the pranks and the occasional nastiness when he’s in a strop. 

“Fine.”

“Can’t have spent two years being ‘fine’.” He gives the words air quotes. “What’d you do? Other than pine for me, which I know took up most of your time.”

“And yet, somehow, I made the time to eat and sleep.” 

“Don’t know how you managed it. So? How did you spend your time waiting for us to come back to you?”

Liam winces, because he can’t help it, because that’s a little too close to what happened. 

Louis sees, of course, because he’s always been too clever for his own good. “Liam. Tell me that’s not all you did.”

“Of course not!” Liam straightens, tries to pull a little away, but Louis’s always had incongruously strong arms. Like an octopus, Harry’s always said. Or Shelob, Zayn would add, and then they’d have to watch Lord of the Rings and listen to Zayn bitch about how the books were better. “I pulled jobs. Coached some celebrities out of their hard-earned money.” And missed you both too much. 

“Oh, Li…”

And Liam can’t stand that look on Louis’s face, the big brother look, when this is all kind of his fault, so he shoots back, “Well, didn’t you want us to wait? Isn’t that why you’re in such a snit with Harry, because he changed and you didn’t expect him to?”

It’s Louis’s turns to pull back like Liam had shoved him, and suddenly it feels like he did, because none of this stress is Louis’s fault, not really, even if it was his idea that set off all of this confusion and how Zayn’s turning to him now. 

“Lou, I’m sorry.” He reaches for Louis, pulls him back in with a one armed hug. “That was out of line.”

“Nah, wasn’t.” Louis shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “I do know when I’m being an ass, you know. Just can’t seem to stop it.”

If he were Niall, or Zayn, he might let it go. But he’s Liam, and he likes to fix things, so, “I think Harry would like it if you did. Stop, I mean.” 

“You’re a manipulative little shit, aren’t you?”

“Learned from the best.” He pauses, gives Louis enough time to smirk, then adds, “By which I mean Zayn.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Louis’s elbow digs into Liam’s ribs, just hard enough to hurt. “Zayn just looks at people until they do what he wants. It takes a real master to actually tell them to do it.”

‘And you’re deflecting,” Liam points out. He might not be clever, but he’s just as stubborn as the rest of them. 

Louis groans, and collapses back into the couch cushions, throwing his hands dramatically into the air. “I try, okay? I try and then he says something or they have a story I missed and I hate it, alright? I don’t want you all to have been sad but we were, right? We were fucking miserable and alone and it helped to think of you lads having fun but it hurt, too, and I don’t know which was worse.” His hands come down to run through his hair. “And Zayn’s Zayn, but he was, well, preoccupied, and – I mean, he was great in there, a real rock, and he’s pretty in the right way, too, so we—”

“He said he hadn’t,” Liam interrupts. “Done—I mean, he said he didn’t—”

The frustration on Louis’s face turns to a glee that has Liam properly scared. “Said that, did he? Wanted to be very clear to you? Did he show you the results, too? Lad clearly has big—”

“Tommo,” Liam cuts in again, because this is important, damn it, because of the lie and because it just is, “Did he?”

Louis lets out a reluctant sigh, like Liam’s ruining all his fun. “No. We managed not to. Were in for white collar crime, so most guys with us weren’t violent or anything. But you might have noticed—” he winks ostentatiously “—that our Zyan’s kind of pretty, and even if he’s not Harry, boy knows how to flirt, and people like to do things for pretty people.”

Yeah, Liam knows that. He’s pretty sure the world knows Liam knows that. “Makes our job a lot easier,” Liam says, instead. 

“You could talk to him, you know. About the kiss and all. He’s Zayn, and he’s got all this—“ Louis waves his hands, frustrated, like he has to rethink something before he says it, which is always difficult for Louis, “well, he won’t bring it up on his own.”

Liam looks down at the fabric of the couch. He’s not a fiddler, never has been except when Zayn’s hands are right there and he lets Liam fiddle with his fingers, but he plucks at a loose thread. “Not you, too. That’s all of you who’ve told me to talk to him now. Was there a memo I didn’t see?”

“Now who’s deflecting?” Louis grins, but then he sobers, and his eyes are serious. “But maybe if all of us told you so, you should take a hint.”

He could. He could take a hint and ask Zayn what that kiss had meant, and stand there as Zayn gave him an inscrutable look—or, worse, a pitying one—and say something like ‘throwing you a bone’ or ‘you were there’ or ‘I was sick of you pining after me, so I thought a kiss might break you of it.’ He hates the maybe he’s been living in, but at least he knows it. 

“I think,” Liam says slowly, “I have a job to plan. Your job to plan, actually. Unless you’d rather give up Parker?”

It works, like Liam knew it would. His whole body tenses, and the fire starts back in his eyes. “Oh, Parker will pay,” he announces, jolting to his feet. “We’ll make him fucking pay.” He’s got his energy back, the way his grin flashes at the thought. But at the doorway, he turns back to look at Liam. “Never took you for a coward, though.”

\----

He’s not a coward. 

Liam tells himself this as he wakes up from a fairly sleepless night. He’s not. He’s rappelled down the side of a building for a job, for heaven’s sake. He lies to his mother. Regularly. Once, he even helped Louis in his workshop. He likes to win, and he’s willing to play the game to get there. 

But the thing is—the thing is, Liam likes to win, and he hates to lose. And he’s a con man. It goes against everything he is to play with a full deck. You never go into a game without aces up your sleeve, metaphorical or not. And with Zayn…Liam’s got nothing up his sleeves. He doesn’t even have a full deck. And Liam might be the better poker player, but no one’s got a poker face like Zayn’s. He’s not even sure there’s a game on. How’s he supposed to raise the stakes? It’s not cowardice. It’s self-preservation. 

And it still isn’t enough to stop him from opening the door to the quick raps Liam knows is Zayn. 

And, sure enough, it is Zayn there, leaning against the doorjamb like he stepped out of a photo shoot. It’s not the Zayn of the past few weeks, sloppy and tired. This is Zayn in pants tight enough to make Liam’s mouth water and a leather jacket over a crisp white t-shirt that somehow looks hotter than a t-shirt has any right to. His hair is aggressively styled, pushed back into a quiff, and his stubble is carefully crafted to highlight his cheekbones. This is Zayn going out, Zayn ready to work. There’s a moment when Liam can’t breathe, where he’s pretty sure he is actually incapable of forming words because there no blood left in his brain. 

Zayn’s lips curl into a smirk. Liam wills his blush away. “Yeah?”

“I need to get out.”

Liam blinks. He doesn’t know what he was expecting—what he was hoping, yes, but not expecting—but that wasn’t it. “Huh?”

“I need out,” Zayn repeats, slowly, as if to a child. “I can’t sit here anymore.”

“Okay, Louis,” Liam teases. He steps away from the door so Zayn can walk in. He does, brushing past Liam and leaving a whiff of cigarette smoke and Gucci cologne, but he stays near the door even when Liam sits back down on the bed. 

“Haha, you’re very funny,” Zayn retorts, “Come on. Let’s do a job. Let’s do fucking something.”

Liam can’t help the concerned noised that comes out of his mouth. This isn’t like Zayn. Zayn’s usually the patient one, who’s willing to wait and wait and wait and wait until the best moment to strike. Not this leg twitching impatience, not even when Louis’s bouncing off the walls and Niall’s stress-eating and Liam’s about ready to scream with boredom. 

“Right now?”

“Yeah, now. Today. Let everyone looks after themselves for once.” Zayn spins, paces to the window to look out over the pool. 

“When did you last sleep?” Liam asks, trying for gentle when he kind of wants to just drag Zayn back into bed and make him sleep, and kind of wants to just drag Zayn into bed and make him scream. 

‘Last night, for five hours.” If it was anyone else, they would have added, ‘mum’, but Zayn doesn’t joke about that. “I’m fine. I just—need to get out. The painting’s done. My part’s done. I’ve got nothing to do and the job’s still not for another two weeks.” 

“You could help Harry. Your eye for the vault—”

“Liam.” The shudder when Zayn says his name like that, deep in his throat, is an involuntary reaction, like breathing. Zayn turns away from the window. He’s not smiling, and there’s a hint of pleading in his voice, of desperation. “Please?”

Someday, Liam will learn how to say no to Zayn. 

But today is not that day. 

“We’ll get back by tomorrow? Because I’m going with Josh to look at Parker’s schedule—”

Zayn’s smile blossoms, slow and sweet, and no, Liam’s never going to learn how to say no to him. 

“Brilliant,” he says. Then his eyes drop down to rake over Liam’s body. Liam probably imagines it taking longer than necessary. “Get dressed. We have people to fool.”

\----

The bass pounds in Liam’s head like a second heartbeat, like it’s gotten right into his bones. He’s never been a huge fan of these sorts of clubs, big and loud and impersonal and crowded—he’s more likely to get dragged in by Louis or Harry than go on his own, normally. 

But now, still buzzing with the adrenaline high of two thousand extra dollars in his pocket, of the sheer ease of it, the smoothness with which they had managed it, he welcomes the pounding, frenetic energy, the push of bodies around him. It wasn’t a big con, or a hard one—couldn’t be, with just him and Zayn and no real planning—but it was still a con, still a rush that Liam let sink into his skin, because this—this was why he was here, this feeling. Louis got off on messing with people, Niall just didn’t care about the rules, Harry had never known what a legal life might mean, Zayn liked to play for the sake of the game—but Liam was there for the buzz. It’s an addiction, probably, but there are worse things to be addicted to than the way his blood sings in his ears and his skin burns with it. 

One of those things is leaning against the bar, both elbows braced against it. His eyes flash, reflecting the shifting colors of the light. Liam can just see a hint of ink at his wrist, where he holds his glass, right over where Liam knows the blood is warm close to the skin. 

There are people surrounding him, of course, because there will always be people around Zayn in a place like this, where just being there is a signal for availability. A girl on his arm, another pressed against his side—but Liam can’t be jealous, not here, not of them, because they’re just part of the game, part of Zayn’s never-ending quest to see how far he can push himself, and Liam—Zayn catches Liam’s eyes, raises his glass in a silent toast. When he swallows, his eyes don’t leave Liam.

Liam grins back at him, and lets himself be pulled back onto the dance floor. He’s not too cool to dance, like Zayn—which, Liam is one of the few people who knows, means Zayn is actually incapable of dancing without looking like an idiot—and Liam knows he looks good dancing. He’s neither an idiot nor modest; he knows he’s attractive, can see the looks he gets. But he plays it differently in a place like this, because he doesn’t have Harry’s charm or Louis’s smoothness or Zayn’s mysterious allure. Liam’s a normal sort of hot, a comfortable, welcoming sort, the sort that looks good in motion, when his muscles flex and twist. He likes the way it feels, to know his body is doing what he wants and it looks good doing it; he likes the way it barely takes a second before there’s a guy pressed behind him, his hips grinding with Liam’s, breath hot in his ear. Liam doesn’t look back, doesn’t even acknowledge him more than to move against him, because this is his game like the bar is Zayn’s, and the prey doesn’t matter. 

That guy is replaced by another, and then there’s a girl in front of him, then a guy in front of him, and they all smell of sweat and nothing else, and it’s almost a relief to touch them with no expectations or commitments or wondering, because he doesn’t care about the way their skin feels beneath his hands or how their eyes look when he touches them, and he knows they feel the same about him. Just to know, to be sure—he hadn’t realized how much he missed that, needed it, after Zayn had opened up the _maybe_ after so many years of knowing he didn’t have a chance. Liam misses this solid ground, and now, for the first time in two years, if only for the length of a song, he’s back. 

He risks a glance over to the bar, buoyed by success and recklessness. Zayn’s there, his eyes on Liam. When he sees Liam watching him, he smirks, and Liam shrugs and laughs over the head of the girl he’s grinding with, adding in a smooth roll of his hips. 

Something…changes in Zayn’s face. He pushes off the bar, ignores the pouts of his flock, and pushes into the crowd. 

Shit. The euphoria dies, or dims, at least, because even if it wasn’t Zayn Liam will always bleed when one of his lads is cut. Liam pulls himself away from the girl, mouths a ‘sorry’ she doesn’t see and doesn’t care about, and shoulders his way through the crowd. 

If Liam knows Zayn, it doesn’t matter what set off this mood, he’ll be going outside to for a smoke and a brood. So he heads towards the edges of the dance floor, trying to guess which would be the most likely exit for Zayn to choose. 

He’s taken fully by surprise when a body appears behind him, a body pressed so tightly against Liam that Liam can feel the leather of his sleeves, the ridges of his belt, the smell of him, like cigarettes and Gucci. “What—”

“Dance with me,” Zayn breathes into his ear, lips brushing against Liam’s earlobe and sending a shiver right through him. 

“You don’t dance,” Liam points out. He doesn’t move. He can’t. Can’t process. Doesn’t know how, when Zayn’s this close and his voice is a purr in his ear, 

“Making an exception,” and Liam can feel Zayn’s grin, even as hips swing a little awkwardly against Liam’s. 

And Liam can’t say no to him, and he wouldn’t even if he could because he’ll take the pain for Zayn’s chest against his back, so he reaches behind him to grab Zayn’s hips and move them with him, pushing firmly when Zayn gets off beat. 

Zayn makes a sound that’s almost a mewl, and Liam’s so glad Zayn’s behind him because he’d been hard enough just from the feel of Zayn, and that sound goes right to his dick. 

“Shit, Liam,” Zayn mutters, “You aren’t fair.”

“I’m not—” But then there are lips against Liam’s jaw, and all other thought stops, everything that’s not focusing on Zayn’s lips on his skin, hot as a brand, and then they’re moving down his jaw and his neck, until Zayn is nibbling on his collarbone, hard enough that it’s going to bruise. 

It’s that that breaks Liam, the heart-stopping thought of Zayn’s mark on him. 

He pulls away, spins so he’s facing Zayn. Zayn doesn’t look any different than he did minutes ago, still cleanly put together, except for the look in his eyes, like in that jail, and the way his breath is coming heavily, his chest heaving. 

“What are you doing, Zayn?” Liam demands. That wasn’t just friendly groping. Not like the playful kisses they all exchange sometimes. That—that had definitely been more. “Because—”

“Are you saying no?” Zayn’s voice is hoarse, and his pupils are blown wide in eyes like the whiskey he’s been drinking. 

Liam should think. He should think because he knows how much his heart could break. But Zayn’s eyes are hot on him, and he can feel where Zayn’s teeth had dug into him, and he’s loved this man since he was sixteen, so, “No,” he replies, “No, it’s—”

Zayn swallows the last words with his mouth, grabbing Liam’s head and yanking it to him. There’s no finesse in the kiss, none of the seduction Liam knows Zayn is capable of, just a desperate sort of need, teeth and tongue and Zayn’s fingers clutching his hair, hard enough to hurt, and Liam groans into Zayn’s mouth, his hands dropping to Zayn’s hips to pull him closer.

Liam makes a throaty noise of protest when Zayn pulls away, but it turns into a moan when Zayn starts to mouth his way back down Liam’s neck, shoving the collar of his shirt aside to start on his collarbone. “Fuck, Li,” he murmurs, between bites that make Liam’s knees go weak, “Just—you, on the dance floor, with those other people—how was I supposed to—I tried—”

Liam doesn’t care what he tried, just grabs his face and kisses him again, long this time, taking his time to savor the taste of him, whiskey and cigarettes and all those other addicting things. Zayn’s hands slip down, between them, until he’s cupping Liam through his pants, and Liam can feel his smugness in the kiss as he feels just as hard Liam is. 

But when Zayn goes for the buttons on his slacks, Liam pulls away again. “No,” he pants.

“No?” Zayn, Liam notes with triumph and panic, looks wrecked too, his hair disarranged by Liam’s fingers, his lips swollen.

“Not here,” Liam says, as firmly as he can when he just wants to sling Zayn over his shoulder and carry him off to the first vaguely private place he can find. “Home. I’d like a bed.” 

Zayn’s face is unreadable again. “Promise you won’t think better of it during the drive?”

“If you don’t,” Liam counters, because he won’t. He can’t. He’s not sure how he isn’t kissing Zayn right now, when everything he’s ever wanted has dropped into his lap like magic. 

“Then home. Bed.” Zayn agrees, and wraps a hand around Liam’s wrist to drag him out of the club. 

He doesn’t stop touching him the whole ride home, his hand hot on Liam’s thigh, squeezing at his knee, drawing a line up his flank. Liam breaks far more speed limits than is prudent for someone with a criminal outside of his parole in his car, and doesn’t even care, because the instant Liam throws the car into park Zayn lunges across the car, hands scrabbling at Liam’s shoulders as Liam grabs at whatever he can, given his sudden lapful of Zayn. 

“Bed,” Liam manages to get out. 

Zayn grins against his shoulder. “You are so stubborn, you know that?”

“And you’re difficult,” Liam retorts, and somehow gets them out of the car without serious injury. He half carries Zayn up to his bedroom, as Zayn goes to work on the buttons of his shirt, so by the time he kicks the door of Zayn’s room closed Zayn can slide down him and tug his shirt off. 

“Holy fuck,” Zayn swears, staring at him. ‘How are you even?”

“Even what?” Liam can’t help his grin. 

‘Even real, you fucker,” Zayn retorts, and pushes him backwards, “Get onto the bed.” 

Liam is only too happy to comply, and then Zayn’s on top of him, kissing his way down Liam’s chest until he’s licking along Liam’s abs, tongue flicking out to tease and send bolts of fire and need through Liam, his hands inching low on Liam’s hips. 

With the tiny part of Liam’s mind that can still think, “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he complains, because he has no guarantee this will ever happen again and he owes it to himself to get Zayn as naked as possible. 

“Good point,” Zayn agrees. He sits back, smirking when his weight settles on Liam’s groin, and strips off his jacket and shirt. 

Liam blinks, slowly, and reaches out. It’s not the first time he’s seen Zayn shirtless, obviously, but it’s always breathtaking—lean lines, the hint of muscles beneath golden skin, those swirling lines of ink. Liam traces the letters on his chest as delicately as he can, just because he can, because he can feel Zayn shiver beneath his touch. 

Zayn’s gaze is dark, heavy lidded, as he looks down at Liam. He can’t help but fidget, a little, because until now it’s been all heat and speed, but somehow now it’s slowed down, and there’s something other than just lust in his face, something Liam refuses to worry about when he has a half-naked Zayn on him. 

He knows better than to expect Zayn will say something. So neither does he. Instead, he rolls them over with a twist of his hips, so he’s pinning Zayn to the mattress, and Zayn’s eyes go wide beneath him, then crinkle at the corner as he grins—not his usual sharp, deliberate smirk, or even the happy smile Liam would usually kill for, but something hot and satisfied and expectant that is instantly Liam’s new favorite. 

“Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate your commitment to the gym?” Zayn asks, teasing, as his fingers trace back up Liam’s side, then down again, resting on the waistband of his jeans in a surprisingly tender motion. 

‘Never thought I’ve have to tell you to shut up,” Liam shoots back, and slides down Zayn’s body, tracing each line of ink he encounters with his tongue. 

“Make me.” 

And Liam’s never been one to back down from a challenge, is fundamentally incapable of it, which Zayn knows, but even knowing he’s being manipulated doesn’t stop him from lifting his mouth from Zayn’s navel. Zayn makes that same mewling sound, but he’s on a mission now, and he’s been dreaming of this for nearly a decade. It doesn’t take him long to undo Zayn’s jeans, longer to push them and his boxers down his thighs. 

Zayn’s as hard as Liam is now, dick jutting up from the dark hair around it. When Liam doesn’t do anything for a second, Zayn lifts himself up on one elbow to watch Liam look at him. “I know you’ve seen one before,” he says, a laugh in his voice. 

Liam can’t even find it in him to reply. He can’t find it in him to think even, to pinch himself to convince himself this isn’t a dream, that he actually has permission to reach out and run a finger over the heat at Zayn’s hip. 

“Zayn,” he says, and knows it comes out rougher than he meant it, more sincere, “You didn’t—I can—” He’s never been good with words, and how’s he supposed to find words for anything when Zayn’s bared in front of him, but Zayn somehow understands him anyway, beacuse he swallows, his face tight with arousal. 

“I didn’t, I swear—I didn’t, I’m clean, I promise—”

‘Thank fuck,” Liam breathes and leans down to take him into his mouth, his fingers wrapping around the base. 

‘Got you to swear—shit!” Zayn cuts himself off as Liam swirls his tongue over the head, tasting the salt of precum, “Holy fuck, Liam—”

And then he doesn’t say anything, but when Liam pulls back, his hand still rubbing, Zayn’s eyes are fixed on him and they’re burning like he’s never seen them before, like he’s the only thing that matters in the world, like the whole world could come crashing down in that instant and Zayn wouldn’t notice because all he’s looking at is Liam. 

He doesn’t know what to do with that look, with that feeling, so he swallows Zayn back down, deeper, and his mouth is moving in time with his hand and Zayn is shaking beneath him, then—

“Li, I’m gonna—” and Liam pulls off in time to stroke Zayn to his climax. 

And if he thought Zayn was beautiful usually, this is—the sight of Zayn breaking apart, his eyes blown wide, his whole body straining with pleasure—it’s more than beautiful, it’s more than Liam has words for. 

It’s also not moving, though, and Liam’s about an inch away from exploding in his pants—christ, they hadn’t even managed to get fully naked—and so he pushes his own pants down far enough to take himself in hand. 

“Not that useless,” Zayn mutters, though, and pulls on Liam’s shoulders until he’s even with Zayn on the bed, so Zayn’s fingers can wrap around him and pull, long, sure strokes. He kisses Liam as his hand moves, slow and soft and just as sure, like Liam’s something’s precious, like thanks and affection. 

It takes Liam an embarrassingly short time to come like that, choking Zayn’s name into his mouth, and then he collapses back onto the pillows. 

“Fuck,” he says, on a long exhale. 

Zayn inches closer, his head resting Liam’s shoulder. “Three in three weeks. Might be a new record.”

“Shove off.”

‘You shove off—wait, no, where are you going?” He sounds so honestly irritated that Liam laughs, and leans down to brush a kiss against his sticky forehead, “Just getting something to clean us up.”

‘Oh. Fine.” When Liam does come back, with the closest thing to a washcloth he could find—something he’s pretty sure is a spare paint rag, but clean—Zayn’s barely moved, and he doesn’t move much more when Liam wipes him off and tosses the rag into the laundry basket. 

Then he hesitates. Zayn’s never talked about it much, not like Harry or Niall, but he’s snuck out of plenty of rooms in the middle of the night, and not served a lot of breakfasts, and he hadn’t said anything—

“Stop thinking,” Zayn orders, or it would have been an order if it weren’t sleepy-soft. 

“Not—I just, I could go.”

Zayn opens his eyes at that. He looks like all of Liam’s dreams, spread out over the sheets, lashes brushing against his cheek. “Why?”

“Because—” Liam gestures helplessly at him, at the bed. “This—”

He gets an eye roll in response, and Zayn moves over to leave a conspicuous spot for him. “Not an ass.” 

“I—”

“Stay,” Zayn states. Then, he adds, offhand, “Unless you want to go.” 

Liam cannot think of anything worse right now than his lonely bed, or anywhere that’s not Zayn on his lovely large bed. “No. I don’t.”

“Good.” Zayn waits with exaggerated patience for Liam to get back into bed, then throws the blankets over both of them and curls into Liam, throwing one leg over both of Liam’s. “Sleep now.”

Liam runs a hand over his hair, down his hair, and breathes him in. “Okay,” he says, “Yeah, okay.”

\---

“Parker’s a little insane about his routine, really,” Josh says, leaning back against the gilded staircase that circles upwards in the center of The Wanted Casino and Hotel. His eyes are fixed on the top of the staircase, where a landing connects to the start of the rooms. He’s ignoring the rest of the room, the busy people and workers and everyone in between. 

Though, to be fair, Liam isn’t exactly paying attention either. It’s hard not to be distracted, when he left Zayn sleeping in his bed. If he hurries, and Zayn’s particularly lazy, which wouldn’t be unusual, he might be able to get back before Zayn wakes up, just slide back into bed with him, let Zayn throw an arm over him and tangle their legs together like how Liam had woken up that morning. He’s not really surprised that Zayn’s a cuddler, because he’s touchy with all the lads, but he hadn’t expected it. Hadn’t expected any of it, that anything could happen…

“You’re not paying attention to anything I say, are you?” Josh asks, a laugh in his voice. 

Liam shakes his head, more to wake himself up than to negate anything. He hasn’t lost focus like this since—well, ever, really. He’s never been as wrapped up in anyone as he is in Zayn. It’s a little terrifying, now that he thinks about it. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Mind-blowing sex does that to us all.” Josh turns back to the stairs as Liam gapes, but he can’t help the smug grin creeping over his face. It is nothing compared to how smug Louis will be. “You do know you had to go through a lot of the house to get to Zayn’s room, right? And that we weren’t all asleep?”

Liam isn’t blushing. He’s a con man, and con men don’t blush. 

But he does rub the back of his neck, because there’s no reason to hide his lesser tells from Josh. “Sorry?”

“If it means you finally stop pining, I’m okay with it.” 

Liam settles back against the rails too, watching the stream of people go by. Suckers, all of them—or most of them, he can’t know if there’s one or two like him in the crowd, those people who decided losing was for losers and that it was time to change the rules. But they’re an interesting variety of people, from men in once-sharp suits left over from last night to wide-eyed tourists with Midwestern accents and baggy shorts. There’s a guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt, but because Liam is the nice one he gives him the benefit of the doubt that it’s ironic. 

“Did anyone not know?” he asks. 

“That you’ve been pining after Zayn for as long as I’ve known you, or that you had sex?”

“The first. Both.”

“No.”

“To which?”

“Both.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” They watch the crowds. Liam’s not surprised, really. It’s not a crew that’s good at staying out of each other’s business, and reading people is their business. He hasn’t been particularly subtle about his crush, either, he knows. Clearly Zayn knew, given how he acted last night, like Liam was a sure thing. He’d be offended if it wasn’t true. He wonders, idly, as he replays the feel of Zayn’s hips grinding with his to the pounding bass, what happened last night that made it the moment. 

“Your romantic peccadillos aside—”

“Peccadillos?”

“Yes, peccadillos—there’s something you do actually have to hear, because I think we can use it, and you need the background before you see her. Parker’s got a girl.” Liam’s ears prick up. A girl they can use. He can’t imagine Parker’s managed to get a girl whose affection could stand up to the combined assault of all five of them. 

Josh smirks. “Told you you should hear. She’s not as punctual as Parker, but she’s got a schedule—I think she’s in college, or some sort of school—and she should be here soon, so you can see her, see what you think. Hot, but major jailbait. I don’t think she’s too into him, from what I’ve seen of them together, but he’s not noticing or not caring, because he acts like she’s a sure thing. She usually comes by on her way to class—there.”

Liam watches her come down the stairs in slow motion. A pretty set of legs in black leggings, a blouse that highlights as much as it conceals the lean lines of her body, clouds of dark hair around a beautiful face. And all the warmth in Liam turns to ice. 

“I haven’t got a name yet—” Josh stops at the look on his face. “You know her?”

He knows her. Even if he didn’t recognize her, hadn’t watched her grow from a thin-faced girl into a smiling teenager, it’s too easy to see him in her, in the high cheekbones, the whiskey eyes, the slim elegance of their bodies, the sharp jut of jawbones just stubborn enough to not be boring. He knows that body, that face, just cast in a masculine mold. His fingers burn with the memory of it. With the anger and the shame. 

“Safaa,” Liam says, turning his back so she can’t see him as she darts past, her backpack bouncing against her hip, “Her name is Safaa.”

\---

The kitchen is crowded when Liam and Josh get back. Everyone except Simon is there, snacking or sipping coffee (or tea, if you’re insane or Zayn). Zayn’s sitting at the counter, cradling his tea between two hands. His hair is sleep-mussed, his eyes glazed, but they come to life as he sits up and his smile spreads when he sees Liam. 

Liam barely spares him a glance. He can’t do more, because he might just punch him. It’s taking all his willpower to just stand in the doorway. How dare he—just smile at him, like he’s—like it’s—

“Li?” Harry asks, slowly, “You okay?”

“I don’t think,” Josh starts, but then Zayn slides off his stool and starts towards him, and he just—he can’t. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” he demands, and Zayn pulls back like he’s been struck. 

“Li—” he starts, a question. Then his eyes widen, and shut off. “Safaa?”

“Safaa,” Liam confirms, nearly a growl. “Your fucking—”

“Okay,” Louis cuts in. His fingers wrap around Liam’s bicep, hard enough to hurt, then grins at the rest of the room. “Give us a sec, guys?”

Dani’s gaze flicks between Liam and Zayn. “Are you sure?”

“Minor argument, nothing to worry about, you know us,” Louis responds, but it’s a lie, and he knows it, because that’s his most disarming smile, “Just—some privacy, if you please?”

They grumble, but they leave, the girls filing out, Josh and Nick following behind. Liam waits until they’re gone, and Harry closes the door behind them, before yanking out of Louis’s grip and advancing on Zayn. “So were you ever going to mention it?”

Zayn’s face is statue-still. He hasn’t moved since Liam first asked the question. “No.”

“You—” he hadn’t expected him to admit it. But of course Zayn wouldn’t lie, the game doesn’t work if no one knows. “So, what was last night, a distraction? Trying to keep me occupied so I wouldn’t notice your damn sister—”

“Sister?” Niall asks at the same time Zayn snaps out, “No!” and Louis says, “He had a reason—”

“And Louis knew?” Liam rounds on him, “What was I the only one out of the loop? Trying to see how long you could keep me in the dark? I helped you find her, dammit!” 

“I’d rather like to know since when Zayn’s had a living sister,” Harry inserts. His voice is as honey-thick as usual, but he’s tense as he leans against the fridge, his arms crossed over his chest. “Seeing as, you know, I was under the impression his whole family died in that car crash.”

Zayn winces. Liam very much doesn’t care. 

“All but one of his sisters,” Liam explains, biting off each word. He might regret this later, breaking the secret he’s held onto for so long for Zayn’s sake, the secret that had them plotting together long into the night until Zayn fell asleep on Liam’s shoulder, and Liam looked down and realized he loved this quiet, arrogant, beautiful boy, but he’s too tied up in the hurt and betrayal and confusion and fear to care. “She got thrown into foster care, and Zayn lost track of her. Until we found her again, a few years ago. We,” he throws at Zayn, whose skin is going white beneath his tan. “Both of us!”

“And now she’s—”

“Parker’s girlfriend,” Louis confirms. He’s shifted slightly, away from Liam and towards Zayn. Drawing battle lines. “Or that’s what he calls it. He’s paying her way through college, as far as we can tell.”

“Which might be considered a pertinent detail,” Liam shouts. “Something it might have helped to know before we pulled a job on Parker!”

“It’s not relevant,” Louis snaps back, “She’s not a part of this.”

“She’d recognize Li or Zayn, she’s a part of it,” Harry points out, quietly, “Can’t be helped.”

Niall raises his hand. “I’m more confused about the whole Zayn having a secret sister. Can we go back to that?”

“Yes, let’s,” Liam agrees. “Let’s talk about all the many secrets Zayn’s been keeping from us.”

Four pairs of eyes turn to Zayn. Liam doesn’t know about everyone else, but his are burning. 

Slowly, very slowly, Zayn unwraps white-knuckled fingers from his mug. He sets it down on the table, adjusts where the handle is. Then he looks up. “Fuck you all,” he announces, and turns to go. 

Liam lunges past Louis to catch his shoulder. He kissed that place last night. Now his fingers dig into the skin. “No. You don’t get to do that this time. You explain yourself. Right now.” 

“Fine.” All at once, Zayn whirls, wrenching himself from Liam’s grip. It’s the first time Liam’s seen him this angry since they were seventeen, his lips thin, color high in his cheeks. “Fine. You want me to explain myself? I kept her a secret because she’s not a fucking part of this, and I don’t want this life touching her, because she’s better than that. I didn’t tell you because she’s my goddamn sister and she is all I have left, and I will do what it takes to protect her.” He’s not loud, but his voice hisses out like the lash of a whip. “I didn’t tell you because it is none of your fucking business what I do with my family! I don’t ask any of you about yours!” He’s not closed off now, his eyes crackling with anger, his face twisted with it, and a small part of Liam, the part not tied up in his own anger, spares a moment to appreciate that he’s almost as beautiful angry as he is the rest of the time. ‘And I didn’t sleep with you to distract you. Clearly it couldn’t have worked!”

There’s silence. Then Harry asks, his voice as smooth as if he’s coaxing a wild animal to his hand, “That’s why you didn’t say anything then. Why not now, when it is relevant?”

Zayn lets out a breath, and the anger seems to go out of him with it, his shoulders sagging, his chin dropping. “Hostages only work if you know about them.”

“Hostages?”

“What do you think this is?” Louis cuts Niall off. “She doesn’t realize it, we think, but she’s there to ensure my good behavior. Only person I’ve got is El, and she knows better than to bite, so he went for the next best thing.”

“A friend’s weakness,” Harry breathes out. 

“Exactly. She’s his guarantee.”

They all fall silent. It’s a reason, Liam has to admit. Not a good one, but a reason. A very Zayn sort of reason, tied up in his anger over his family and his need to protect Safaa and his instinct to rely on himself above everyone else. And Louis, apparently. It doesn’t mean—he’s not sure what it means, except it’s nothing, and everything. 

“So does this change anything?” Niall asks, at last. Zayn shoots him a hard look. He holds up his hands, palms out. “With the job, I meant.”

“No.” It’s Louis’s take charge voice. “Nothing’s changed. We get revenge on Parker. He doesn’t know it’s us, so Safaa’s safe. Same as planned.”

“Okay. I’m going to work, then, yeah?” Niall’s getting out, Liam thinks. Giving himself time to process. He’s not good at getting mad. But he walks by Zayn as he leaves, has to to get out, and he leans over to bump his shoulder companionably against Zayn’s as he passes. Zayn smiles, slightly, at the motion. 

“I’ll check on the others,” Harry agrees, “Make sure they’re all—well…” he trails off, because there’s no good explanation here other than the truth. But Harry will think of something. He always does. He also wraps an arm around Zayn in half a hug as he goes. 

Liam glances over at Zayn, than at Louis, who is giving him a long, even, stare. 

He can’t. He can’t be here, can’t listen to the two of them with their plans and secrets. He just keeps replaying that moment in his head, Safaa walking down the stairs and him realizing Zayn had lied to him, about the most important thing in his world, and he slept with him even as he lied, whispered endearments into his skin, and so it was all a lie. 

He needs to leave. “I’m going to update Simon,” he says curtly, and strides towards the door. 

Zayn catches him before he can leave, one hand on his wrist. He’s looking at Liam through lowered eyelashes, his teeth digging into his lower lips for a second before he speaks. He looks very young, for once. Liam doesn’t care. He shouldn’t look like that. It’s not fair for him to look scared when he’s just pulled the rug out from under Liam. “Are we—are we good?”

“No,” Liam snaps back, and pushes past him. 

He doesn’t look back. But as he rounds the corner he glimpses them out of the corner of his eye, Louis’s arms wrapped tight around Zayn, Zayn’s head buried in his shoulder, and Louis’s glaring at Liam like it was he who messed everything up. 

\----

Liam lets the job absorb him for the next few days. It’s not hard to let happen, really—there are plenty of details to iron out, and everyone knows he’s the detail man, so they all come to him with more. Louis has the ideas, Harry gives it substance, Niall keeps them calm as they do it, Liam deals with the actual getting it done, and Zayn—but Liam doesn’t think about that. He spends a lot of time not thinking about Zayn, actually, as in he’s actively avoiding him. It’s surprisingly easy, though Liam’s pretty sure Zayn’s not hiding in his room now that the forgery is done. He sometimes catches a hint of his laughter in the next room with Perrie, or a whiff of his cologne as he walks by an open door, but he never sees Zayn. Or if he does, almost, gets a glimpse of dark hair or dark skin, Zayn’s gone by the time he decides to run the other way. 

What’s harder, though, is avoiding Louis, because Louis is trying to corner him. It takes a lot of effort and ingenuity—the first of which Liam’s got in spades, the second of which he’s pretty sure he’s lacking—to outwit Louis, so he takes the easy way out. 

He hides in Nick’s room. 

“Not that I mind my room being taken over by the angst king,” Nick calls from the bathroom. He’s poking at his hair or something back there; he’s been doing it for the full hour Harry and Liam have been watching the movie. “But you do know it’s not a permanent solution, right? Unless you want to start sleeping with me, which, sorry love, but not my type.”

“Yeah.” Liam ignores the rest of the statement. He does know. It’s a problem. 

“I mean, you’ll have to talk to Malik eventually. If only not to mess up the weird, codependent fivesome thing you’ve all got going on.”

“Oi!” Harry protests. His thighs shift under Liam’s head, but he keeps petting his head. “Who you calling codependent?”

Nick sticks a hand out of the bathroom to flip Harry the bird. Harry’s laughter rumbles through him, enough that Liam feels more than hears it.

They both stare at the movie for a minute. Some stupid comedy, because anything actiony reminds him of Zayn, and anything romantic reminds him of Zayn, and even this sort of reminds him of Zayn, if only because it’s Harry’s hand running through his hair and not Zayn’s, and there are none of Zayn’s snarky comments or exclamations. He hadn’t realized how much Zayn had woven himself back into Liam’s life. Or maybe he just never left. 

“He’s right, you know,” Harry murmurs at last. “You can’t avoid it forever.” 

Liam sighs. “Look, all I know is he kissed me, and didn’t explain it. Then he slept with me, and didn’t explain it. Now he’s lied to me, and he still hasn’t explained it, and this is the one that matters, and I don’t want to think about it right now.” 

Harry’s hand runs over his head, down his back, so it can make comforting circles there. “Okay,” he replies, agreeable as ever. 

But it’s not. Liam knows that. This thing with Zayn wasn’t some stupid crush that was going to go away with a little distance. He’s loved Zayn since he realized that under the cool façade was a boy who cared as deeply as anyone he had ever known, who had layer after layer Liam wanted to conquer and lay bare, who looked at Liam like he didn’t need to be anyone but who he was. And he knew it came along with the façade, with the miles and miles of secrets, the instinct not to share, the moods and the brooding and the way he liked to push the game to the limits just to see what would happen, and that sometimes ends in explosions. Usually, he’s okay with it. But this time, he feels like he was the one being pushed, like maybe it’s all been some sort of experiment, and that—that, he’s not sure he can deal with. The ground is shaking beneath him and he can’t find anything to steady himself, because he can’t lean on Zayn, because Zayn might be ready to pull away at any instant just to see if he’d fall. 

So he closes his eyes, and feels Harry breathe, in and out, steady and solid. 

\----

But no good plan can last forever, and Louis corners him a week later, handing him a towel as Liam pulls himself out of the pool. 

Liam takes it cautiously and runs it over his hair. “Thanks.” He had thought Louis was going on a supply run, which was why he had chosen now to spend time in a single place. 

“Niall can be bought for food, Payner, you know that.” Louis grins, but if it’s a little manic it’s still more of what he shows marks, that edge of danger on the brink of being controlled. 

“It’s really a good thing the Feds don’t know that,” Liam agrees. Maybe he’s being paranoid. Maybe Lou isn’t about to pounce. 

“Speaking of Feds,” And no, he’s not being paranoid at all. “When are you going to get your head out of your ass?” 

Liam doesn’t even bother pointing out the lack of segue. Louis thinks segues are for lesser beings. 

“My head isn’t in my ass. My head is far away from my ass.”

“”Your head is so far up your ass it’s back where your head should be”

“That doesn’t—”

“You’ve been avoiding Zayn.”

“I’m mad at him.” 

“You’ve been mad at him before, but you didn’t—”

“Not like this.” Liam turns away and stalks towards the deck chair where he left his stuff. He still doesn’t want to think about it. Avoiding it has been working; he’s found some sort of equilibrium like that. 

Louis follows him. “Why not? This really doesn’t even break top ten of my ‘annoying things Zayn’s done’ list.”

“Because—” Liam hides his face in the towel for a second, finding his equilibrium. Then he lifts it up. “Look, this is between me and Zayn, not you. So—”

“Bullshit.” Louis cross his arms, juts his chin out stubbornly. “If it mess up the dynamic, its all of our business. You wouldn’t be avoiding me if I didn’t have something to do with it. And it’s fucking with Zayn’s head, and he’s one of my best friends, and I owe him more than I can ever repay for the last two yeas, so it’s my business. What makes it so much worse?”

“He lied to me.” Liam’s fists clench around the towel. 

Louis’s voice is as close to gentle as he can do. “No, he didn’t. He kept a secret, but if you had asked—well, I’m not sure what he would have done. But he didn’t lie to you.”

“That’s irrelevant.”

“It’s really, really, really not.” 

“However you put it, he was conning me,” Liam throws the towel to the side and stands. He knows how to look intimidating when he wants to. 

“He was trying to—oh, protect you, I don’t know.” Louis’s not intimidated. Not for the first time, Liam wishes he was taller. But that probably wouldn’t work either. “He didn’t actually tell me much, obviously, being Zayn and all. But he wasn’t conning anyone. Except Parker, I guess. But not you. He couldn’t con you to save his life.”

“Then why did you know?” It bursts out of Liam like the air out of a popped balloon, like a dam bursting that he didn’t even know was there. “If it wasn’t a con, if he was just keeping it a secret, why did he tell you!” The ‘and not me’ he doesn’t say, doesn’t have to by the look on Louis’s face, by the way it goes serious and angry all together.

“He told me,” Louis says slowly. Liam shifts his weight forwards. Louis is at his most dangerous when he sounds most like Harry. “Because I was there, and I made him explain why he was punching walls. Literally, by the way.” Liam refuses to care. Refuses to think if there were new scars on his hands, or care that he might have missed them. “Because it was my fault, and I deserve to hurt for that.” 

Louis takes a step forward. His eyes are burning, hot with anger boiling beneath the surface. “He told me because he knew what he had to do and much as he loves me, he doesn’t really care what I think of him. He told me because he had to tell someone, and he couldn’t risk telling you.” Louis reaches out to stab his chest with a finger. ‘So don’t be getting all jealous and shit of me, for heaven’s sake. Just talk to him before you guck it all up forever.” He spins on his heel and storms back into the house, a miniature hurricane on two legs. 

Liam falls back down on the chair. He doesn’t know what the hell Louis’s talking about. There wasn’t a risk in telling Liam—and what did Zayn think he was protecting Liam from, anyway? Knowing more about him. Louis’s just making stuff up to justify Zayn’s lying. Or secret keeping. Because apparently they’re best friends now. 

Except—when Zayn wanted, needed, to leave, he went to Liam. He had slept with Liam—but maybe he just knew Liam was a sure thing. But no, that’s not fair, Liam has to admit; Zayn wouldn’t do that. Zayn’s got his pick of enough people that he wouldn’t just settle for Liam. And the way he had laughed—had fallen apart—he hadn’t faked that. He can’t have. He wouldn’t have. Louis had always been loudly convinced that Zayn didn’t even crack an expression during sex, if he didn’t want to. 

Liam groans into his towel, leans down to brace his elbows on his knees. If Lou meant to confuse him, he succeeded. But it’s not making him less angry with Zayn. He hates being confused. He hates that Zayn’s the person who always confuses him the most. He hates that he still wants him. 

\----

In the end, he sneaks away, because he knows it’s a stupid idea, a risky one, a Louis sort of idea, but he has to go. There’s no other way. There are two days left before the job, and he’s forgotten what it’s like to sleep well. He doesn’t think he’s slept through the night since he left Zayn’s bed. And he knows that he’s throwing things off by avoiding Zayn. 

He needs to get his head on straight. He just—he can’t. Not quite. Not yet. He can’t set himself straight until he figures more things out, finds something solid to build on. He needs to look at some of the cards in Zayn’s hand. But Zayn will never show him, so he does the next best thing. 

“Buy you a coffee?” he asks as he slides into line at the café. 

Safaa freezes like some sort of wild animal, turns slowly—then her face lights up like Zayn’s does with his rare, real smile, and throws her arms around him. “Liam!” she cries, hugging him tight, then letting go to bounce back on her heels. “Oh my God, I haven’t seen you in forever! Not since—well, forever.”

“Nice to see you too,” Liam grins. He can’t not. She’s got Louis’s energy without his edge, and Zayn’s smile, and she’s a normal eighteen-year-old. He can’t not smile at her. “But really, coffee?”

“Yeah, of course! Then we need to catch up. You really did just go silent for the last few years, you know. I mean, I expected it of course—but you could have emailed.” 

Liam rubs at the back of his neck. “Sorry.” Because he is. He could have stayed in touch with her, made sure she was okay while Zayn couldn’t. He should have. For Zayn, at the very least, but for her too, because somewhere along the way of helping Zayn track her down, then making him actually contact her, then going with Zayn sometimes to see her and hearing all about her when he didn’t, he had grown to love her to. That’s half of why he’s so mad, he thinks; didn’t Zayn think he cared? “That’s on me.”

“I know, you’re busy, you can’t always risk it, sometimes I shouldn’t know. Zayn’s explained it to me.” She’s not quite as bright now, and she stays quiet except to order, as Liam pays. But when they go to grab a table, she bounces back, her teeth flashing against her skin. “But now, you look great! Very hot. Last I saw you had the buzz cut thing going on, which did do great things for you, but I like you better with hair. I think we Maliks have a thing for it. I actually had to stop Zayn from crying when you cut it all off.” 

“Really?” Liam can’t help how his ears prick up. That had been at least a year before the kiss. Zayn had cared then? Or was it just an aesthetic thing, like how Zayn liked to fuss with Harry’s curls or paint Niall’s eyes or Louis’s arms. 

“Well, no, he didn’t actually cry. But he was pretty cut up.” She smiles at him, a hint of a smirk in it. “So, that’s still going on?”

“Did anyone not know?” Liam asks, a little desperately. That was not what he wanted to talk about. 

“No. Well,” she taps a finger to her chin, “Maybe Zayn, but that’s just because denial is a good reason to angst.” 

Liam blinks. He always—how could Zayn not know? Especially after the kiss. He wouldn’t have done any of that if he hadn’t known. He couldn’t have. 

But that’s not why he’s here. He accepts the coffee that’s handed to him with a murmured, “Thanks,” and takes a sip as he thinks how to approach the subject. 

“So,” he asks, finally, “What have you been up to in the years I missed?”

“Oh, you know, school, college, all that. I’m at school here, actually.” She licks a bit of whipped cream off the top of her drink. 

“And boys?”

He asks it casually, he knows he does because he’s actually quite good at this, but her eyes narrow. He forgets, sometimes, that she’s as smart as her brother beneath the bubbly. “Yes,” she says shortly. “There’s someone.” Then she smiles, all sweet and innocent. “What about you? Are you so busy pining after my brother to go on hot dates? Or do you have some sort of waiting for him to get out thing planned?”

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know Zayn’s out of prison. He hasn’t talked to her at all, must not even have contacted her when he was in, if she can’t tell the difference now. How—what was he thinking? Cutting himself off, again?

Liam leans back in his chair, tries to keep his voice light. “Some hot sex, but no one in particular.” He waggles his eyebrows, a la Niall. 

She giggles and slaps him on the arm. “You’re such a dog.”

“I know.” They both laugh. Liam takes that time to think of his next move. “So, this boy—he’s treating you right?” Her eyebrows come together, and he holds up his hands. “Hey, Zayn’s not here, I’m just doing the big brother thing.”

“He’s great.” She replies. Liam just looks at her. “No, really, he is. He’s loaded, right, so he pays for a lot of my stuff, and he’s really reliable, you know? He’s always where he says he’ll be, right on time, and—what’s the face for?” 

“Just doesn’t sound like you’re in love.” Josh was right, then. Liam supposes that’s a relief. 

“I don’t need to be in love,” she shoots back, “Not working out for you, is it?” Liam winces, but she goes on, ruthless in her anger, “I just need to be not alone.”

“You’re not alone,” Liam protests. He wraps his hands around the coffee cup for something to hold onto. “You’ve got your foster parents, and Zayn—”

“Zayn left!” she nearly yells. People turn to look at her, and she gives them a fake-looking smile and leans forward. Whens he goes on, she’s quieter, but no less forceful. “Zayn left me alone. Twice. At least Tom won’t do that.”

“He didn’t leave on purpose,” Liam says, just as quiet. He hadn’t known the scars ran so deep. Wouldn’t have guessed, to see her. 

“Didn’t make me any less alone.” She shrugs, sips her coffee. Her flash of anger is gone as quickly as it came. “It’s okay, I mean. We Maliks are good at being alone. I think Zayn thinks I’m better at it than I am, because he’s so good at it, but I’m alright. I just don’t want to.” 

Good at being alone. Zayn is good at that. He’d had to be, orphaned at twelve, passed between foster parents and orphanages until he was eighteen. Even with the lads, closest thing to family they have, he’s independent too often, up in his room painting, running his own part of the job independently. Liam had never really thought about it that way before, never thought it was anything but personal taste, a need to retreat into his quiet like Liam does. Never thought of it as reflex, and not need. 

“Safaa…” he starts, but she cuts him off with a laugh. 

“Sorry, that was a total downer. I didn’t meant to depress you with stories about your lost love. Tell me about your last job.”

“Here?” He takes the out, though. From the pain in her face, the pain he wonders if Zayn doesn’t show beneath his calm mask. 

“Oh, come on, no one’s listening.”

“Your brother would kill me if I made you an accomplice.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. C’mon, he never tells me anything, you’ve got to!” 

Maybe it’s a Malik thing, being able to convince Liam of anything, but he does tell, keeping it as legal as he can. She’s an awful listener, really, worse than Louis, interrupting him and making commentary and asking irrelevant questions, but it’s still fun. She’s fun, bright and open and laughing, so much like her brother in some of his moods, but without his silence. She never had to learn it, Liam guesses, never needed to use it as a weapon and armor like Zayn had done for years because sometimes it was all he had. And that was, at least partly, because Zayn had done everything in his power and some things that shouldn’t have been so she wouldn’t have to. But still, it would be so much easier, Liam thinks as he illustrates the poker game he barely escaped from intact, if he could have fallen for her (or someone like her, because he knows she’s too young for him even if Parker doesn’t).

She’s an open book, really; Liam knows exactly where he stands with her, because she tells him. 

But even as he thinks that, he knows it’s stupid, because the parts of Zayn he fell for are some of the parts she’s missing—the moods, the way you have to work to make him see you but when you succeed he never looks away, even the silence. Liam had forgotten just how loud, how overwhelming the other lads were when he didn’t have Zayn and his never-ending calm to retreat to. He’s had to be on, up and energetic, all the time now, and it’s exhausting. Even if all the guessing with Zayn was exhausting too, in a different way, but before the guessing it had been good. 

“Liam?” Safaa asks, cutting herself off in the middle of a proposed job on one of her professors, who’s apparently a dick. “Are you okay? Because you’ve got a weird look on.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“No, see, that’s like when Zayn told Mum he was fine when he broke his arm falling out of a tree.” Liam hadn’t known about that. Zayn could barely bring himself to talk about his family, other than Safaa. And if Safaa’s scars go deeper than he thought, how much deeper did Zayn’s go? “What’s up, really?”

Her eyes are the same gold-flecked brown as Zayn’s, but they’re different, really, rounder, less sharp even in concern. She reaches out to put a hand over his, to squeeze comfortingly. There’s nothing even remotely sexual in the touch, nothing confusing, just friendship. “If you can be my brother because mine’s far away, I can be your sister, too. Tell me.” 

He loves her so, so much in that instant, as much as his own far-away sister. And she’s in an awful situation even now, even if she doesn’t know it. He needs to warn her away from Parker, to tell her to get out now, before it gets too dangerous. If Parker doesn’t believe the frame job, if he knows it was Louis…

“Safaa…” he begins. Then stops. He can’t. If she pulls out now, Parker will suspect. He’ll look for other leverage, look into them, find Louis and Zayn. The whole job hangs on Parker feeling secure, and he’s can’t without her. She has to stay. 

It hurts. Hurts knowing he’ll have to leave her in harm’s way, or risk worse. Risk really leaving her along, or losing Zayn, and he loves Saf but—no. And how much worse must it feel for Zayn? 

Even though it hurts Liam too, to look at Safaa, innocent in a way he wasn’t even at her age, and knows he’s using her even though he loves her as he smiles and squeezes her hand back. “Nothing. Just preoccupied with work.”

“Oooh!” Her face lights up. “You’re on a job, aren’t you? Is there anything you can say?”

“Plausible deniability,” he replies with a grin he doesn’t feel, and sips his coffee as she starts to plead. 

\----

 

Liam doesn’t knock before he pushes Zayn’s door open. Surprise is always a prime weapon with Zayn. 

Zayn’s sitting on his bed, leafing through a book. His IPod is in; his fingers drum out the beat on his thigh. He looks almost relaxed. But he glances up when Liam walks in, and his eyes widen in a way Liam shouldn’t find gratifying, but does, sort of. Zayn rips his earbuds out, but his eyes dart to the door, like he’s thinking of escaping. 

Liam doesn’t give him the chance. He’s doing this. He almost understands, he thinks. And he is fucking sick of the maybe. “Okay, Zayn. Cards on the table. Why did you kiss me?”

“Which time?” 

He’s not sure if Zayn’s honestly asking, or is being difficult on purpose, so he assumes the latter and snaps, “The first. And,” he adds, crossing his arms over his chest, “If you lie to me, or are conning me, I will never talk to you again. So.” 

Zayn closes his books, studying the cover as he does so. He keeps on watching his hands as he puts the book on the nightstand, then his IPod next to it. 

It’s only when he’s set his earbuds over the book that he looks at Liam, meeting his gaze, and his eyes have something that Liam thinks is resignation in them. “Because I realized it might be my last chance.”

The words hit Liam like a hammer, because he’s sure they mean something, but hell if he knows what it is. Miracle of miracles, though—Zayn’s still talking. “Jail’s kind of notoriously not good for small, pretty boys with a knack for mouthing off, and who knew what would happen with me and Lou. And I didn’t want to die without kissing you. So I did.” His voice is utterly even, but Liam’s not fooled. He knows the tension in Zayn’s shoulders, the way he holds his head straight above his body, chin tilted upwards. “And I’ve been wondering if I should regret it ever since.” 

Liam can feel his face pale, feel the lightness that had come over him with the first part of his statement drain out of him until he’s not sure how he’s standing. “Do you?”

“It ended in you avoiding me, but also in great sex.” Zayn shrugs. “I haven’t decided.”

“No.” Liam grips his biceps tighter, until he can see his skin turning white around his fingers. “You’re doing the cryptic thing again. Why would you regret it?”

“Because it meant you weren’t speaking to me.” Liam opens his mouth, but Zayn cuts him off. “I’m not being cryptic! That’s a damn good reason for me to regret anything.” 

That admission feels better than it probably should. But still, “I wasn’t angry about us sleeping together.”

“But you wouldn’t have been as angry if we hadn’t,” Zayn counters. He folds his legs under him so he’s sitting cross-legged, like some parody of a swami. “I knew it was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have started it, but with Saf and Parker and—well, everything, but you—you don’t play fair, Li.”

“ _I_ don’t play fair?” Liam scoffs. Zayn’s the one with the—the everything. Then he gets back to the point. “You should have told me about Safaa.”

“Maybe.” Zayn shrugs again, but it’s jerky, a far cry from the smoothness of his usual movements. Liam holds onto that, that he feels awkward too, because they’ve never actually had to talk before, had always been able to read each other minds. 

“No, no maybes. You shouldn’t have lied about her.”

“I didn’t lie.” 

“Lie of omission, whatever.”

“No, it’s really not. I didn’t say anything because—” he hesitates, then swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing.

“Because what?” Liam prompts. He makes the conscious effort not to uncross his arms, because he’s not sure if he’d punch something to hug him. “Because Louis’s got a lot of theories about how you didn’t want me to think badly of you, which sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.” He couldn’t think badly of Zayn if he tried. And he’s tried, this last week, tried to cast him as a manipulator and malicious and heartless, and he just—he’s still here, back in Zayn’s room, holding himself back from sitting down and curling into him and forgetting about everything so it will all go back to how it was when he was sure how it ended. 

“Swearing again?” Zayn smirks. It’s a very purposeful expression, the kind he gives girls at bars, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. “Maybe I should stop counting.”

“ _Zayn_ ,” he hisses out. This is important. This is more important than Zayn wanting to tease, because if it’s not a good reason—well, Liam’s still angry, is the thing. Still hurt, even more. 

“Fine.” Zayn uncrosses his legs so he can draw his knees up under his chin. He looks young again, younger even than Safaa, and vulnerable with it. “You should listen to Lou more.”

“What—why would I think badly of you for your sister being held hostage?” he asks, but he answers himself even as he finishes, because he felt it too. “Because you’re leaving her there.” The pain that Liam knew Zayn was carrying alone, because for all Louis loved him and would carry as much as he could, he didn’t know Safaa, didn’t love her. 

“Because I was leaving my sister with fucking Tom Parker for even a second!” Zayn rolls suddenly, up to his feet so he can pace to the window like some sort of caged animal. Controlled bursts of energy out of total stillness, that’s Zayn. “And there’s you, who family is so out of it they don’t even know you’ve gotten a fucking parking ticket, and I’ve only got one left and she’s in danger and I can’t even—” His fist lashes out, hits the window frame with a crash that has Liam lunging forward, all thoughts of staying aloof thrown aside in favor of making sure Zayn isn’t hurt, because his hands, artists hands, hands that had touched Liam like he was wonderful—

But Zayn pulls his hand back, apparently not hurt, and he turns so he can look at Liam, though he’s still facing outside. “You should hate me. I hate me. I’ve only just got her back and now I’m losing her again. What sort of brother does that? What sort of person?”

“Zayn…” Liam trails off. Here he is again, despite all his resolve—watching Zayn with hopeless love as he stands apart, alone, unwilling to lean on him. He doesn’t know how Zayn’s supposed to lean on him when he’s not sure where he’s standing, but he just—he wants. “You shouldn’t—you aren’t losing her, she’s your sister, she loves you—and it doesn’t sound like she’s in danger, she told me Parker’s never—”

He hears himself say it even as Zayn freezes. Shit. Shit shit shit. “I mean—”

“She told you?” Zayn repeats, slowly, icily. He pivots, just as deliberately, so he’s silhouetted against the night, his eyes catching the light and glinting like metal. “When?”

“I’m not allowed to talk to her now?” Liam asks, accusing because he can’t go on the defensive, not now. 

“When?” Zayn repeats, his voice a hiss now. 

“What I do with my time isn’t—”

“She’s my sister, Liam!” Zayn busts out, and it’s the outburst, the loss of control, the desperation and the pain, that makes Liam give in. 

“This morning,” he admits. “I went to see her.” 

“Does Parker know?”

“Of course not!” Liam shoots back, stung despite himself, “What do you take me for?”

Zayn takes a step forward, then another one, so he’s in Liam’s space, and Liam can feel the hairs on his arms rising, from the energy around him or just the nearness, he’s not sure. “If you put her in danger—”

“Like you haven’t?”

He hates himself for it even as he says it, as Zayn draws back. His eyes are narrowed in anger now. “I stayed away! See, this is why I didn’t tell you, because you couldn’t leave it alone and who knows what Parker will do—”

“So you did choose not to tell me.”

“Of course. I don’t just forget about Safaa.”

“Like you just forget about me. About how maybe I’d like to know what’s happening with her? About how other people care about her too?” Liam closes the distance between them so he can loom over Zayn, push him back down. 

“There was no need for both of us to worry!” The words are conciliatory, the tone is not. “I thought you of all people would understand that! I could be the only one with the guilt—”

“That’s such bullshit!” Liam yells, and Zayn rocks back, eyebrows raised. Liam never yells. But he doesn’t care anymore, doesn’t care about being the stable one, the even-tempered one, because Zayn is being stupid and cutting him out and this is the Zayn Liam hates, the one who wraps himself up in himself and doesn’t let anyone in, even if Liam bloodies his fists trying to beat down the wall, and Liam hates to lose and it’s the knowledge that he’s losing, that he’s losing Zayn and what they had, that makes him say, “You know, for someone who’s so sure they’re always alone you sure as hell don’t do anything to make it any different.” 

It hits home. Liam knew it would, knows all the chinks in Zayn’s armor. Zayn’s eyebrows come down, and his face—his face shuts off, all of the emotion of before just gone, swallowed in the ice, and he speaks very, very evenly and stands very straight as he replies. “Fuck you.” 

He strides past Liam, their shoulders bumping as he goes. Liam turns with him. “No, fuck you, Zayn—”

Zayn yanks the door open. “Out.”

“Oh, do you need more alone time? Cutting me out, next it’ll be the other boys.” Zayn’s fingers tighten around the door, and his back jerks like Liam hit him. He leans in, though his feet stay firmly planted. He’s not leaving. He’s not giving in. “You already cut out Safaa. Pretty soon there’ll be no one left.”

There’s beat of silence, where all Liam can hear is his own harsh breaths. Then Zayn rotates. His chin is up, his eyes black in a blank face. “You think I don’t know that?” 

The words fall on Liam like a cold shower. He can’t move. He hadn’t meant—well, he _had_ , but not—it wasn’t supposed to be an ultimatum— “Zayn…”

“Get out,” Zayn repeats, dangerously quiet. 

Liam goes. He lost, he thinks. Zayn’s hand was better. Or maybe he just had too much to lose. 

\----

Harry’s standing outside of Zayn’s door, his arms crossed over his chest, one foot flat against the wall. He’s got his eyes closed, his head tilted back. He looks like he could wait there forever. Knowing Harry, he probably could. 

But when Liam comes out, he opens one eye. 

Liam looks at the ground rather than at him. “You heard?”

“Every word,” Harry’s gaze skates over him, a slow up and down that is all too knowing. There are downsides to being best friends with people who make their living reading others’ emotions. “C’mon.”

He shoves off the wall, starts to walk. Liam follows. He doesn’t know how to do anything else right now. 

He can still ask, though, “Where are we going?”

In answer, Harry opens the door to his room and ushers him inside. Louis and Niall are already there, sprawled on the floor in a vicious game of FIFA it sounds like Niall is winning, given Louis’s swearing. Harry shuts the doors with a loud bang and walks over to nudge Louis in the side. 

“Oi, Haz, I was about to—” Louis exclaims, but when he looks up he must see something on Harry’s face that makes him set down the controller. Niall scores one more goal, then does the same. As one, they turn to face Liam, who’s still hovering by the door. This feels planned. 

“Guys?” he asks. They’ve all got their serious faces on. He can’t deal with more seriousness today. He just wants to go to sleep so he can wake up and concentrate on the job and pretend like Zayn will ever talk to him again and he’d know what to say if he did. “What’s up?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” Louis holds up a hand; without looking, Harry reaches down to tug him to his feet. “What is with you lately?”

“Nothing!”

“Not nothing.” Niall counters. He gets up, too, so they’re a solid wall of concern that Liam cannot deal with right now. “You’ve been weird—well, since the job started, really. And it’s not just the sex with Zayn thing, because you’ve been in love with him since the beginning.” 

“Not the very beginning,” Liam mutters, but he doesn’t bother denying the rest of it. They all know it’s true. The world knows it’s true, apparently. 

“Since, like, a week after you met him. Whatever.” Louis waves a hand dismissively. “Point is, you’ve been off.” 

“You yelled, Li,” Harry points out. He’s gentle, like always; it hurts more. “You never yell.” 

“Well—” Liam runs a hand through his hair. How can he explain when he doesn’t even know himself? How can he put into words the _maybe_ he’s been living in and hating and savoring in case it turns into a no since Zayn came back? And that’s just it, isn’t it? “Zayn,” he answers. It’s not enough, but it’s all he has. 

“He’s enough to tie anyone in knots,” Niall agrees. “Know a guy ten years, turns out he has a sister. Honestly.” 

“It’s not that—well, it is that, but—” He resists the urge to just grab at his hair and pull it. 

“Articulate,” Louis drawls, and Harry rams an elbow into his side. “What?” Then he looks at Liam, and rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, sit down and tell Uncle Tommo all about it.” He takes his own advice, plopping down on Harry’s monster of a bed. 

Liam inches forward, skirting the room so he can sit by the headboard, as far away from Louis as possible. They’re still worrisomely united. He doesn’t want to get close enough for them to mob him. 

“Think we’re going to bite?” Harry asks. 

“I might, if this takes too long,” Niall adds, with a hint of a grin breaking though his Serious Face. “I haven’t eaten since—”

“An hour ago,” Louis finishes. “Yeah, clearly you’re starving.”

Niall gives up on the face and just grins at him. “’s cause I’m more than just a stick with braces,” he explains. 

“Fucker.”

“Hey!” Harry protests. He sits down next to Louis, throws a comforting arm around him. “He also has hats.” 

“Judas!” Liam cries, and shoves at Harry, knocking him over onto the bed, then leaps onto him to start tickling. Harry giggles and scoots away, towards where Niall’s standing at the foot of the bed, who in turn takes a few steps back, away from the fray. 

Liam watches them, his boys, and can almost feel a smile. “And here I thought you were staging an intervention or something,” he observes to the ceiling with overdone mournfulness. Or maybe not overdone. Zayn would have liked this, he thinks, would probable either pounce on Niall to get him into the battle or just sit and laugh at the other with Liam, depending on his mood. 

“What?” Louis sits up, still straddling Harry. 

Harry props himself up on one elbow, uses the other to brush his hair out of his eyes. “Oh, right.”

Niall hides the pillow he was clearly planning to lob at Louis behind his back. “Crap friends the two you are.” 

“Anyway,” Harry says, a vain attempt at sternness, “We were talking about—get off, Tommo—Zayn. And your feelings for him.” 

“Love feelings,” Niall clarifies, all helpfulness. 

“Which isn’t the problem,” Louis points out. He’s moved off of Harry, but now he’s just leaning against him. “That’s the old problem. Now there’s a new one. Is it the job?” he asks, quick, like Liam won’t notice the question if it’s slipped in. 

“Yes. Well, no—I want Parker as much as you do.” He does, too. Maybe not with the obsessive hatred Louis has, has always had, but he wants him to burn. 

“But yes?” Harry prompts. 

“But…” Liam trails off. He’s trying, he is, but he’s not—words, real words, true words, have never been his forte. “But he’s just Zayn, again, but he’s not—and it’s not—and we’re not—” he groans and bangs his head back against the headboard. 

Louis tilts his head so he can give both Harry and Niall a sidelong glance. “I’ve got nothing.”

“’s ironic,” Harry replies. Liam can’t tell if he’s being deep or just Harry. “Zayn would probably understand him.” 

“Not anymore,” Liam mutters, because it’s too true, both of those statements, and that’s the whole thing, isn’t it. But when three pairs of eyes focus on him, he goes on, louder, “I mean, we’ve not been able to communicate, clearly, if he can’t tell me about Safaa and I can’t tell him I saw her—”

“You saw her? What if she—”

“Not now, Tommo.”

Liam ignores them both. Everything’s coming up now that he’s started, all the roiling emotions he’s been trying to keep in check so they won’t pull him out of control. “And even when we had sex it must have meant different things because he was lying during it, and he didn’t really explain even when he said he was and maybe he thought he was putting it all out there but I didn’t get it!”

Harry blinks, once. “I’m not sure you’ve said that much since the Caribou job.”

Niall shudders. “We swore never to speak of that.”

“Yeah, but I—” Louis cuts him off by pushing off of him to get to his feet, striding close enough to Liam for him to really appreciate his glare. 

“Okay, Li. Here’s the deal. You want cards on the table? I’ll play a few of Zayn’s cards for him. One,” he holds up a finger, shoves it into Liam’s face. “He’s quiet. You know that. He doesn’t share much. Either deal with it or stop messing him around. Two,” Another fingers, another jab, this one at Liam’s chest. “He had reasons not to tell you about his sister, and you might not agree with them but they were well-intentioned, so cut him some slack. Three.” Three fingers makes jabbing impractical, so he just holds them up. “Hear him tell it, both times he made the first move, which is pretty self-explanatory. Four—”

“How many do you think there are?” Niall mutters. 

“Not more than ten, right?” Harry whispers back. Louis uses his other hand to flip them off without breaking stride. 

“Four, love isn’t about being sure. It’s about making the leap, or whatever. And five.” Liam sighs, glares at his outstretched palm. “Five, part of Zayn’s still that twelve year-old who lost everyone. Of course he’s going to go it alone. He’s still not sure he won’t be. He talked a bit, in the bunks, ‘cause there wasn’t anything else to do. No one he’s ever had has lasted, ‘cept for us, and then we’re a weird sort of category. Why should you be any different?” Louis’s smile flashes then, sharp enough to cut Liam to the core, “Flush of hearts, king high. Your hand any better?” 

“I—” Liam stutters. He hadn’t thought of it—he _knows_ Zayn tends to act alone, doesn’t really commit—and how did Louis know all this, anyway, if Liam didn’t? 

“Speaking of which,” Louis goes on, “He’s been alone long enough, he’ll probably be ready to stop brooding. You lads got this?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, just leans down to smoosh his face against Liam’s cheek. “You know I love you both,” he says into Liam’s ear. “But you needed to hear it.” 

Then he pulls away, and is out the door. 

Liam watches him go. Watches him go to Zayn, when it used to be Liam’s job. When it used to be Liam interpreting Zayn’s silences for everyone else, when Liam was the one who understood his moods, understood him. 

“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks Harry, incredulous at the way he hadn’t even looked at Louis leaving, before they can start discussing his speech. 

“What?”

“This whole—the Louis and Zayn thing. It’s like—I dunno, the balance is shifting. They never used to be that close.” Too self-destructive together, too likely to kill each other or everyone else, even odds which. 

“Prison’ll do that to you,” Niall points out. 

Harry’s just looking at him, too perceptive by half. “Liam, are you jealous of Louis?”

“No!” He pauses, then sighs. The truth can’t hurt. And he recognizes the irony of a con man thinking that. “I’m glad they helped each other. Really. I’m glad it for them out alive. But—” He looks down at the violet bedspread so he doesn’t have to look at either set of eyes, green or blue and both too caring, “Everything’s just changing, you know? Before he left, I was in love with him, but I didn’t have a chance and I knew it. Then—well, _then_ , but he still wasn’t there and who knows why he does what he does so it was basically the same, right? But then he came back and he was different and we’re different and I don’t know what we are or where we’re standing and I hate it. I really, really hate it.” 

“Tell me this.” Harry leans forward, oddly intense for someone whose curls are flopping into his eyes and who’s wearing an open floral-print shirt. “Right now—at this very moment in time, in the universe—are you in love with Zayn because you’ve always been in love with him, or because you’re in love with the person he is right now?”

Liam lets out a long, slow breath, and closes his eyes. Tries to separate out the old Zayn, falling apart in that hotel room, smoking outside that phone booth, grinning at him from behind an easel, shoving him into a pool, from the Zayn in that room down the hall. Still beautiful, always that. Still quiet, except now he isn’t sometimes, has learned mischief and that brilliant smirk that goes with it. More dark spots, now, and that lie, still that lie, but there’s the way he smiled up at Liam in bed, pulled him in for a sleepy kiss before they slept. The way he had fallen apart beneath Liam’s lips and hands. The way his love for his sister and them outweighs everything else, and never falters in that. 

“Both,” Liam says, without opening his eyes. “All of them.”

Something presses against his side, something else drapes itself over his legs. He opens his eyes to a mouthful of curls and a Niall blanket. 

“Then,” Harry says, muffled in Liam’s chest. “There you go. Solid ground.” 

He’s right. Here, in Harry’s arms, with Niall spread over him like an anchor, he can feel it, steady like the breaths they’re all taking, like the breaths he can pretend to feel Louis and Zayn taking in the other room. Something steady. Something stable. 

“When’d you get so wise?” he asks, spitting out hair. 

He feels, rather than sees, Harry dimple. “Zayn got too angsty for wise sayings. Someone had to pick up the slack.”

\----

In the morning, all eleven of them meet one last time. Louis likes the time to make a speech, and it is practical to have one last chance to check up on everything, but really Liam’s just always loved the tradition of it, the moment when they’re all sitting around a table again, like the second before an inhale. 

Or he would think that, if he wasn’t on edge from a bad night’s sleep and Zayn sitting across the table, his face hard, very pointedly not looking at Liam. 

He barely listens to the no doubt inspiring speech Louis gives after the rundown of the plan by Harry. He pays a bit more attention when Nick and Louis start snapping at each other because a murder would be really inconvenient right now, but he tunes back out when Simon steps in. He pretends he isn’t stealing glances at Zayn when he can chance not getting caught—but given the looks the boys keep giving him, Dani’s grins, the level, warning glare from Perrie, he’s not succeeding. 

This is a really bad time for a crisis. He can recognize that. But it doesn’t mean he’s not having one. It doesn’t mean he’s not still angry at Zayn for keeping secrets and then not apologizing for it, and it doesn’t mean he’s not sorry for digging in the knife and going behind his back. It doesn’t mean all he really wants right now is for the quiet moment before the job when it was just them and the lightning of adrenaline cracked and Louis would smirk and Harry would dimple and Niall would be bouncing up and down and Liam would feel himself start to echo that energy, his game face, as Niall called it, on and Zayn would smile his knife’s-edge smile and he would know they were ready, they were going to win. But that can’t happen. Can’t happen because he fucked it up—or they did, because it was Zayn’s fault too—and now he feels unprepared, even if he isn’t, and he hates that too. 

So he hovers by the door as they file out, and grabs Zayn’s arm before he can leave. Harry shoots him a questioning look, but Liam shakes his head and then Harry’s gone too. 

This close, Liam can see the hints of bags under Zayn’s eyes—which on him, of course, looks more like the start of elegant, poetic debauchery than anything else—and it makes Liam feel a little better to know Zayn’s tied up about this too, even if it shouldn’t. There’s not enough time to fix things now. But maybe he can just—

“I can do my job,” Zayn spits. He doesn’t have the usual excitement he gets before a job, just a blank face and tense shoulders. “You don’t need to worry about the job.”

“That’s not—” Liam shoots back, then takes a deep breath. Listen. He has to listen to what Zayn’s not saying. “I’m sorry.”

Zayn’s eyes narrow, but his head tilts as if he’s simply curious. “For what?”

“For going to see Safaa behind your back. For saying those things.”

“You meant them.” It’s not a question. 

“Doesn’t mean I should have said them.” Liam raises a hand to run through his hair, remembers it’s gelled back for the job, and stops, his hand floating awkwardly by the side of his head. He’d like to think Zayn’s lips twitch. “There’s no time now. But—I hate this. That we’re not—well, you know. I’d like to talk.”

“Not yell?” Still that even tone, that not even Liam can read. 

“Talk. Like adults. Or something close to it.”

Slowly, very slowly, Zayn nods. “After the job,” he agrees, and turns to leave. But then he pauses, with his hand on the doorknob, and Liam braces himself because he knows the signs of a Zayn Malik bit of wisdom coming. “But Liam—” he talks to the side, not looking back, “You keep on wanting me to show my hand. But you---you’ve barely got any money in the pot.”

The door closes behind him. Liam stares at it, at the dark wood grain, his jaw dropping open. 

\----

He doesn’t think about it. Partly because he doesn’t know what to think about it, but mainly because there’s that whole job thing going on, and there’s a few million dollars on the line, and Parker, and Liam’s enough of a professional to focus on that. 

And he likes to focus on that, he can admit, as he watches the scene from his vantage point on the second floor mezzanine. He has a good view of the whole casino floor from here. And it’s just waiting now as Harry goes off and acts the decoy. The others are all scattered, ready for the closing play, Parker’s frantic call—Josh hovering within earshot of Parker, Niall still at his table, ready for Liam to walk in and arrest him, Eleanor and Perrie in distractingly short skirts and low-cut tops by the roulette wheel, flirting and cheering for all they’re worth, Dani in his ear on the comms, whining about how boring the vault is, Nick and Louis bickering in the van because it was too high a risk that Parker would recognize Louis. Simon’s the only one missing, back at his house, letting them run the show. 

And Zayn’s sitting at the downstairs bar, just within Liam’s view—too much in his view, really, because Liam can’t help but look, look at how the suit highlights every line of his body, clinging and hanging there like it had been meant for Zayn to wear it, lounging at a bar drinking a whiskey, like a photographer was about to pop out and start shooting. You’d have to really know him to see the mix of glee and nerves in the angle of his head, the slow nursing of his drink, the way his ankles cross. Glee for the job, for action at last, for glory and the game; nerves because it isn’t done, and because Safaa is standing at a poker table mere yards away, watching Parker play. 

Parker gets up from the table with a regretful laugh, slides his hand around Safaa’s elbow, and together they meander towards the restaurant. 

“Hey, that’s Malik’s sister?” Nick asks in Liam’s ear. “She’s hot.”

“I don’t care if you’re not into women, I will cut you,” Zayn replies steadily, and Nick laughs. 

“Don’t worry, you’re still the fairest of them all, Zayn-my-lad.”

“Not me?” Harry whines. 

“Not in that get up,” Nick retorts, “Bald caps don’t do it for me.”

“Fucker.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“Haz,” Louis cuts in. It’s not out of irritation, for once; his excitement is audile, his voice tighter and higher than usual. “You’re up.”

“Roger that.” 

Harry—in full Blackman costume—gets up from the slot machine and stretches ostentatiously, then heads towards the exit in a path calculated to directly cross with Parker. He slows as he walks by, glances over at Parker—and Parker doesn’t even look at him. He’s too busy with a whale. 

“Huh,” Harry remarks. 

“Try again?” Liam suggests. 

Harry does. Liam leans forward to watch, bracing his elbow on his knees. Such a small moment, but it’s essential to plant the seed of doubt, the idea that Blackman’s around, so his mind goes to him and not to them. They hadn’t expected it to be a problem. 

But this time Parker definitely looks at Harry—and his gaze shoots right over him, barely acknowledging his angry, condescending nod. 

“Shit,” Harry swears, his glower not faltering, “Fucking shit, this isn’t going to work. He’s not going to take the bait.”

“More obvious?” Josh puts in. 

“He’ll know,” Liam argues, “He’d see through the costume if he looks too long.”

“Twenty minutes, right?” Eleanor points out. “He needs to make that call, stat.”

“I would like to continue breathing,” Dani agrees. 

“We have to scare him into thinking someone’s there!” Louis must hit something, because they can hear Nick yelling at him. “Hazza?”

“Like Li said, I can’t get too close. I could try another pass, but that might be too much. He’s not going to recognize me.”

Liam glances at his watch. Dani’s got twenty-three minutes of air. They need to be down there by then, they can’t be held up here, and not by something so stupid as Parker not recognizing a man whose life he so casually destroyed. He has to make that call to check. How could he not have the human decency to recognize him? They had planned for everything except this, for Parker to be so callous.

“We could” Louis starts, but then,

“I go.”

“What?” Nine voices. 

“We give him me,” Zayn says. He sounds like he’s talking about what movie they’re going to watch. At the bar, he’s putting down his drink, pulling out his wallet. “He’ll recognize me, or at the very least Safaa will.”

“The point was for you not to get blamed!” Perrie spits. Liam spares her a glance; she’s smiling coyly at a high roller across the table. “If he sees you, he’ll know—”

“That it was me. None of you. The painting’s already in play, it’ll trace back to me if I’m already a suspect.” He evens out his cuffs, smiles at the bartender a she hands him back his change. “But you all get clear.” 

“No.” Louis, this time. “No, Zayn, it’s my fault, it was my plan, I’ll take the fall—”

“Parker would crucify you. Me, he doesn’t hate. I’ve always just been collateral damage to him.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry says, faster than usual, but no less firm, “You aren’t doing this alone.”

“You have a better idea?” Zayn asks, and Liam can hear the wry twist in his lips, even if he’s too far away to see it. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done it before.” 

“Not alone—”

“I’ve done that before, too. It’s not your fault, Lou. Haz, make sure he remembers that. Niall, you too? No breaking me out, okay? I love you all, but it’s not worth it.” 

Niall can’t speak, and it must be killing him, but he stops mid-deal to raise his fingers to his forehead in a salute. 

“And Li,” Zayn goes on. Liam almost chokes. There’s no anger in his voice now, just resignation, like he always knew this was how it was going to end. Him, alone. Like he always expected it, because he did, didn’t he, no matter how much he loved them all he always knew in the end it would come down to just him, which was stupid and idiotic and horribly noble and loving in its way, and Liam loves him so much he can’t speak with it, loves him for that stupid nobility that made him lie even if he knew Liam would hate him for it, that’s making him do this. And if he thought he was on shaky ground before the thought of losing Zayn again is dropping the ground out from beneath him entirely, so he’s shaking with it. “Li, take care of Safaa, yeah? Make sure she—”

Safaa. _Safaa._

“Stop. Wait. No.” it’s taking everything in Liam to rise slowly, inconspicuously, while Zayn is still moving towards Parker. “I’ve got it.”

“You’ve got another plan?” The hope in Harry’s voice nearly matches the emotion pounding in Liam’s heart. Zayn’s not alone. He won’t ever be again. Liam will make sure of it. 

“Nick, can you blur the cameras on us? Just so there’s no lip reads?”

“Of course. What’s your play, Payne?”

“Li—”

Liam talks over Zayn. “Harry, meet me by the table 11.”

“On it.”

Liam’s already on the move, down to the main floor. “I need a disturbance now, something to get Parker’s attention—”

“You bitch!” Perrie’s voice cuts across the casino, high-pitched valley girl. “Try to steal my man?” 

“He ain’t your man!” Eleanor retorts, and goes for her eyes. Parker’s head turns, as does everyone else’s in the casino. 

“Whatever it is, Parker’s going to deal with this personally,” Josh tells them, “Make your move.” 

Zayn is going to kill him. He doesn’t care, he reminds himself, as he moves towards Parker, doesn’t care because he loves him and that’s all that matters, that he keep him safe and with them all, that’s his foundation in this changing world. 

“Liam Payne, what are you—”

“Meet me by table 11,” Liam mutters in Safaa’s ear as he brushes past her, and doesn’t break stride as he continues on his way. 

“Fuck no.” 

Liam ignores Zayn. “Haz, you there?”

“In position.” 

“You’ll know your move when you see it.” 

“Nick?”

“Done.” 

“Liam, what the hell are you doing?” Zayn’s voice is a hiss of anger. “She was supposed to stay out of this!” 

“You are not alone. Not in this, not ever,” Liam says, and leans against a column near one of the mirrors set into the gilded walls. Safaa’s there a moment later. 

“Liam, what’s—”

“Check your makeup in the mirror.”

She obeys, with credible acting skills. “Liam,” she mutters out of the corner of her mouth. “What are you doing here? Are you on a job? Am I going to get arrested for this? Am I abetting you?” She sounds more excited than scared. 

“Listen very carefully. In a minute, a man’s going to come over. He’s going to talk to you. You’re going to tell what he says to you to Parker. Okay?”

“Are you pulling a job on Tom? Liam, he’s my boyfriend, I’m not—”

“Safaa.” Something in his voice, maybe the pain of it, the pleading, because this is his hail Mary, and he’s not even sure it’s a good one he just knows it’s his only one, “If you don’t do this, your brother will go back to jail for a long time.” 

Her mouth snaps closed. In the mirror, she glares at him, and it’s almost like watching Zayn decide to be reckless, like Zayn when he had looked up from that bed with red-rimmed eyes and swore he was going to find his sister if it was the last thing he did. Why did the Maliks always think they were alone, when they had that?

“You’re going to explain,” she snaps, but it’s agreement.

Harry knows his cue. “So you’re Zayn’s sister!” he sidles up to her with Blackman’s characteristic short, quick strides, and holds out a hand. His charming smile is oddly out of place on Blackman’s face, especially with Blackman’s body language. “Delighted to meet you, really. I’m Harry.” 

“Hazza…”

“I’m being nice, Lou. She’s like a long lost sister or something.”

Safaa, like all women, can’t help but smile at Harry as she holds out her hand. “Safaa.”

“I’m sure we have many embarrassing Zayn stories to swap. But right now, my name is Carl Blackman. And I have a message for Parker.” 

Liam walks away as Harry leans in to talk, menacing with his bald cap and puffed out chest. 

No one talks as Safaa nods, then heads quickly back to Parker. She yanks him to the side to talk quickly into her ear, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly at where Harry was. She’s not bad at this; the confusion and the panic look real. Maybe they are. 

Then Parker pulls away from Safaa’s hand, and grabs a cell phone out of his pocket. 

“And…he’s calling,” Nick announces, “We are a go. On time, too. Good work, Payne.” 

Liam lets out one long, slow breath, as the other praise comes piling in. Zayn’s not in jail. He’s safe, or at least as safe as the rest of them. 

Liam dares a single glance over at him. He’s staring into a new whiskey at the bar, and he’s not saying a single word. 

\----

He’s still not talking hours later, back at Simon’s house. Nick is giving a raucous, detailed retelling to Simon in the dining room, with the girls adding heir own bits, and Simon is chuckling like a proud father when Nick gets to the point where “Then Dani backflips five bloody feet—” or “And he looked at the painting and said ‘Blackman!’ without even thinking” or “Shit, the look on his face when the power blew—” and Josh is throwing in his own commentary in a low but constant murmur beneath it. 

But they’re in the living room, Louis and Harry curled together on the couch, with Louis’s fingers tapping incessantly on Harry’s head in a way that would have driven Liam insane, Liam’s pacing in front of the TV, Zayn in an armchair, staring at his hands. They haven’t lost their edge yet, haven’t faltered, because the job’s not over. They aren’t together. Niall’s not back. 

Liam checks his phone for what feels like the thousandth time. “He should have at least checked in,” he tells the silent room. 

“It’s Niall.” Harry sounds more as if he’s trying to convince himself than that he believes it. “He probably got distracted by a buffet or something.” 

Louis manages a weak grin and puts on an Irish accent. “There’s over a million dollars newly in my bank accounts—oh, is that chicken?”

Harry and Liam laugh, but it’s low and too quick to end, and then they’re all back to just waiting. It’s not like Niall’s part was the riskiest or anything—it was one of the safer roles, really, secure behind a fake ID and legitimate job—but still… they can’t lose another one. Not after they just got back together. Not after Liam just managed to keep Zayn. 

Even if he, personally, lost him. It’s not that he hasn’t looked at Liam since they got back—it’s that he keeps looking, long, even gazes without heat in them that still make Liam feel stripped bare. 

He doesn’t care. He did what he had to do and even if Zayn is mad at him forever he isn’t ever going to regret it, and it’s only when he thinks that that the irony comes to him. Maybe he understands Zayn better than he thought. He doesn’t like it, but he understands it. 

There’s footsteps outside—the four of them freeze. Then the door opens. Harry and Louis bound to their feet, Zayn’s head jerks up, Liam spins so fast he nearly falls. 

Niall walks in, grinning as if he weren’t an hour late. “Hiya.”

“You little fucker!” Louis screeches, “Where were you?”

“Worried?”

“Not at all.” Louis pouts, and swings his head away. 

“Well, for those of you who were—”

“I was!” 

“Thanks, Haz—I was late because I picked something up on the way out of the casino.”

“Was it food? If it’s food I win fifty bucks off of Louis.”

“Not food.” Niall grins, something as close to a smirk as Liam’s ever seen on his face, and pushes the door open the rest of the way. 

A chair scrapes on wood as Safaa raises her hand in a wave. “Hey. I’m Safaa. Nice to meet you.” She drops a backpack on the floor, and steps deliberately inside. “Niall here’s been telling me a few things about Parker and the past few years. You—” she points at Liam, “I’m incredibly pissed at.”

“Understood, Safaa, but—”

“And you.” She walks forward, very carefully, to where Zayn is standing next to the chair. Liam doesn’t know how anyone could ever think him unemotional now, as he stands there with his eyes bright with love and fear and pain and a desperate, desperate hope. 

“You,” she repeats, stepping even closer. “You!” And then she lashes out, striking at with a fist. He just takes it as it connects with his shoulder, rocking back but not moving. “How—could—you!” and it’s half a scream and half a sob, punctuated by her fists slamming into Zayn’s chest, his arms, anything she can reach, an erratic heavy beat that goes on and on and on until she collapses into Zayn and he wraps his arms around her and pulls her in, his hand stroking over her hair, his lips moving in a constant, steady stream of words and Liam can see the tears sparkling in his eyes. 

And he wants. He wants to wrap his arms around both of them and never let anything hurt them or tear them apart. He wants to press a kiss to each of the tears on Zayn’s face, to the incredulous smile on his lips. He’s wanted Zayn before, always, but not like this. The intensity hasn’t changed, it never has, like a punch to the gut and a fire under his skin—but something else has. Maybe it’s the love in that embrace, binding, steady. Maybe it’s the memory of Zayn’s voice on the comms, saying his good-byes. Maybe it’s just time. 

He’s done trying to keep his balance on rocky ground. It’s time to find a new balance. 

\----

It’s not that easy. Everyone has to see Safaa, of course, then everyone has to hit on Safaa, because that’s apparently how you get initiated, then they have to go over the details of the job again, this time with all of them in the living room and Safaa oohing and aahing at all the wrong moments from her spot with Zayn in an armchair that should not be big enough for two. Then it’s time to eat, and the meal is hectic and loud and everyone’s talking about what they’re going to do with their point and at one point Zayn licks some whipped cream off of his spoon with a swirl of his tongue and Harry has to pound Liam on the back before he starts breathing again. 

And _then_ they all head to bed and there’s a long debate about where Safaa goes that ends with Perrie kidnapping her over Zayn’s protests. So it’s only then that Zayn meets Liam’s eye from across the room, a question in his gaze, and Liam swallows and nods and ignores Niall’s muted wolf whistle as he follows Zayn up the stairs. 

They go to Liam’s room—less baggage, he guesses, but he’s also thankful. It’s easier to keep his resolve in his space, where he knows the flow of the room and the pictures on the walls, of him and the lads, him and his family, some of Zayn’s sketches. 

Zayn leans his hip against the dresser, and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s after.”

“I’m not sorry about pulling Safaa in,” Liam says immediately. He keeps his distance, doesn’t want to crowd Zayn, so he ends up hovering near the window. Outside, Harry and Nick are talking in the setting sun. “I know you’re mad about it, but it was the only way to keep you out of jail, and she would have agreed to it even if we had more time. She didn’t even do anything illegal, and she’s going to leave Parker of her own free will, and he can’t keep her, so that’s dealt with. It really was the best play and—”

Zayn is almost smiling. “I know.”

“What?”

“Saf said something similar. Except there was a lot of yelling and swearing.” Zayn does smile now, soft and fond and exasperated. A big brother sort of smile. It’s more lovely than anything Liam has seen for a week. “She would give Louis a run for his money there.”

“So you’re not mad?”

Zayn sighs, smile fading. “I don’t know.”

God, does Liam know what that feels like. 

But not anymore. He looks at Zayn, at the lines of a body he knows as well as his own even if he’s only learned it by sight, at the ink he memorized and dreamed about, at the hands he can remember drawing fire onto his skin. And then he speaks. 

“I love you,” but no, that’s too easy, so he corrects himself, “I’m in love with you. I was when I was fifteen and I am now and I hate it that you try to do everything alone and that you didn’t talk to me but I love you anyway, or maybe because of it, I don’t know.” If he had been falling before, now he’s jumped, jumped off of the crumbling rock and is hovering in the air hoping Zayn will catch him, and it’s more painful and more freeing than anything he’s ever done before. “I want you to never be alone again, because I will always be there. Always.” 

Zayn blinks. Liam can’t read the expression on his face, is still floating in free fall. “Everything,” he says slowly, “I’ve ever loved has left.” 

“Not us. Not me.”

“You did.”

“And this is me coming back.” Liam steps closer, because he can’t not, when Zayn is looking at him with wide, innocent eyes, and he doesn’t flinch away. “You want to know my bet? I’m all in.” He takes another step, close enough to Zayn to wrap his fingers around Zayn’s wrist, draw it up and press his lips against the pulse point there. “Always.” 

Something glints in Zayn’s eyes, like the edge before he jumps. “Promise?” he asks, and it’s lilting and teasing and it’s Zayn catching him, without the words he’s never really needed, snatching him out of free fall. 

Liam lets go of Zayn’s wrist to cage his face. His thumbs trace the high, sharp line of his cheekbones, and he leans in so all he can see is Zayn as he murmurs, states, swears, “Promise.”

Then he pulls him in and kisses him to seal the deal, soft first, the promise in lips and tongue and teeth, then harder, as Zayn grabs onto Liam’s shoulders to press himself closer, to mold himself into Liam’s body, and there’s desperation but none of the rush of last time, the worried, furtive hurry. Liam takes his time exploring Zayn’s mouth, all the things he had forgotten and all those he had only dreamed. 

Zayn’s hands run down his shoulders, linger a moment on his hips, his fingers running over the edge of Liam’s slacks, then go in for the kill, cupping around his already hard dick. But—

“No,” Liam says, then before Zayn has a chance to second guess, “Properly, this time. Naked.”

Zayn’s lips curve into a smile Liam wants to taste. “You’re such a romantic.”

“You know it.” And Liam has to catch Zayn’s laughter with his mouth, so he can feel it go through both of them. 

“Can’t get naked if you won’t let go of me,” Zayn chuckles into Liam’s mouth. 

Liam takes that as a personal challenge, as he’s sure Zayn knew he would, so he keeps their tongues tangled as he goes to work on the buttons of Zayn’s shirt, as he wrestles it off to reveal all the inked skin beneath. Pants are harder, especially as Zayn, rather than cooperating, is focusing on grinding his hips against Liam’s so he moans into the kiss. 

But that’s only a momentary distraction, because Liam has a goal and he is good at goals, and so in the end he gets Zayn’s pants off without ever losing contact, though somewhere around Zayn’s pants around his thighs Liam abandons Zayn’s mouth to trail kisses down his neck to his collarbone, nipping at the edge of every bit of ink there. 

Only then, when he’s satisfied, does he step back, and grin. “There.”

Zayn grins back, unabashed in his nakedness, because why shouldn’t he be, because Liam’s losing breath just looking at him, at all the places he wants to touch, that he’s dreamed of touching. He’s smiling that smile he gets before he’s about to do mischief, and it’s going right to Liam’s cock. “My turn.”

He eases up to Liam, presses their bodies together so Liam can feel his dick hard against his thigh. But he does slowly, oh so slowly, as he undoes each of the buttons of Liam’s in turn. “Been wanting to do this all day,” he breathes, voice hoarse, and Liam’s heart stutters in his chest, under Zayn’s fingers. “See you in your suit and just wanted to peel it off you, inch by inch, ‘s been killing me because I couldn’t, I didn’t know—”

Liam catches his wrists as they get to the last button, right over his navel. “How didn’t you?” he asks, and Zayn looks up at him from beneath his lashes, less coy than young, and there’s something lovely and heartbreaking in its unstudiedness in a man who’s spent his life learning to use his body as a weapon. “It seems like the whole world knew I was in love with you. You must have known.” 

Zayn’s fingers drum over Liam’s stomach, leaving a line of fire behind. “A lot of people want me,” he says simply, not quite arrogance because it’s just a fact, to him. “I’ve never seen anyone love me before. I couldn’t tell the difference.”

Silence. Liam can feel Zayn’s chest rising and falling, brushing against his on the exhale. Then, slowly, because he needs to get this right, Liam trails one finger over Zayn’s cheek. “Now you know,” he says, and presses his lips to Zayn’s temple. 

It’s heavy, too heavy in that moment, too full of the things Liam can’t say and Zayn, at least, won’t, not yet. 

So Liam lets his hand drop to Zayn’s hip instead, and smiles against Zayn’s skin. “Now, why am I not naked?”

Zayn is only too happy to oblige. 

\----

Later, much later, Liam surfaces out of sleep to gentle fingers on his skin. He cracks open his eyes, tired but too curious to show he’s awake. Zayn is leaning over him, barely visible in the dark, tracing words onto his chest, pressing his own promises over Liam’s heart. 

He lets his eyes close, and drifts back to sleep on the wave of those words. 

\----

The Bellagio fountains are brilliant no matter how often you’ve seen them, beautiful and decadent and constant, just like they were when Liam first saw them on his first trip to Las Vegas with Simon, his jaw dropping like the provincial boy he was, with Harry giggling at his awe and Louis peppering Simon with questions and Niall gaping just as much as Liam and Zayn quiet and scornful but wide-eyed when no one was looking.

They’re not those boys anymore, as they lean against the rail with Zayn pressed against Liam’s side, watching the water rise and fall and rise again. The eleven of them, spread out across the plaza, the eleven of them (well, twelve with Safaa) who just pulled off something that was supposed to be impossible, and got away clean, if Safaa’s reports are accurate. 

Simon’s the first to go, off to a meeting even Louis’s afraid to ask about with a pointed ‘stay in touch’ to each of them. Then Eleanor, with a punch and a kiss for Louis, then Dani, with a smile for Liam and a warning glare for Zayn, then Perrie, with a smile for Zayn and a warning glare for Liam. Josh disappears in between one breath and the next, leaving a note Zayn will find that night with a smiley face and a lewd drawing in Liam’s back pocket. Nick punches Harry amiably in the shoulder, exchanges a few last barbs with Louis, makes a lewder gesture at Zayn and Liam—Zayn flicks him off, Liam waves good-bye.

Safaa’s the last to go, whispering something to Zayn about a midterm to study for and a break-up about to lay the grounds of—Harry’s been coaching her, and she’s not half bad, though Zayn looks ready to kill anyone who thinks of suggesting anything—then bouncing off into the night. 

Then it’s just them looking as the lights and water play. Zayn tucked against Liam’s chest, one of Liam’s arms encircling him; Niall pressed against Liam’s right, Louis on Zayn’s left. Harry’s somehow managed to wrap his arms around all of them from behind, so his head is resting on Louis’s shoulder. 

“Shit,” Louis says, as the music rises to a crescendo. “We did it.”

They all grunt in agreement. There’s nothing else to say. 

Louis goes on anyway. “So I heard about this job— ow!” Three voices groan out, “Louis!” as Zayn’s elbow jabs at his side, and Louis subsides. “Just thought I’d bring it up,” he finishes, sulkily, “C’mon, Zayn, it’s got three lazy susans at least.” 

“Maybe.” Zayn shrugs, as Liam’s arm tightens around him. But then he glances back, presses a kiss onto Liam’s cheek, and his eyes are soft and Liam can read the ‘I’d consult you first’ in them. 

Silence falls again, silence because despite all the noise they can make they’ve never needed it. Never needed it when he can feel Zayn’s breathing in front of him, and Harry behind, when Niall’s arm is warm against him and he can feel the tapping of Louis’s feet. They’re waiting, he think, waiting to finish this off, to close the chapter. 

It’s Zayn who finds it, digging into a pocket and pulling out a coin. 

“Make a wish?” he asks, smiling, as if he knows how corny it is and he’s only doing it ironically, except for how he isn’t. 

“Can we all do one coin?” Niall asks.

“Clearly, we have become one being,” Louis retorts. “So yes.” 

“Do we have to discuss the wish beforehand?” Harry wonders, his voice vibrating down Liam’s back. “So it’s all the same wish?”

“Wouldn’t that make the wish invalid, though? Talking about it?”

“Not if it’s between us,” Louis explains, as if he’s the expert on this, “Between co-wishees sharing’s permitted.” 

“Then a million dollars is a little redundant.”

“World peace?”

“Shut up, Haz. Not getting arrested again?” 

Zayn just smirks. “Going once,” he calls, and flips the coin into the air. It flashes in the reflected light, a brief comet falling, falling, falling, and right before it hits the water Zayn’s lips brush against Liam’s ear as he whispers, “I love you,” and he can feel his smile, his all-is-right smile, and Liam just wishes that this moment could last forever, the coin flipping through the air, tumbling, with his boys around him and Zayn in his arms and solid ground beneath his feet.

**Author's Note:**

> [ tumblr](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/)   
> 


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